Pretty green triangles with decorations.

Well, great.

Why is it that when Rhode Island makes the national news, it’s always about something stupid and/or embarrassing? Why is it always bankrupttowns and pension debacles and mob musicals, and never newborn okapis or princess visits? Why can’t we just for once do something awesome and get recognized for it?

Rhode Island’s most recent embarrassment is this whole “Holiday Tree” debacle. In case you haven’t yet heard anyone on Fox News keen and wail about it, our governor decided to refer to the decorated conifer in the State House this year as a holiday tree, not a Christmas tree, and the sky fell. When I first heard about it I put my head in my hands, not because I’m offended as a celebrator of Christmas, but because I knew that there was a good chance that Governor Chafee’s choice would become the 2011 flash point for this “war on Christmas” nonsense we hear every year. And you know what? It did! It totally did. Even though Chafee isn’t the first governor to call it a holiday tree. Oh, you didn’t know that? It’s true. The last governor – a Republican, no less – did the same thing.

HE DID THE SAME THING.

Of course, when he did it, the people who didn’t like him weren’t as loud or as organized, or they plain didn’t care, so no one made a stink about it. Or perhaps there were more egregious offenses against the baby Jesus to preoccupy them. I don’t know. What I do know is that yes, of course it’s a Christmas tree, and yes, calling it a holiday tree is probably a bit of a misguided, if earnest, attempt at inclusiveness. (Although I’m not sure what Carcieri’s reasoning was.) However, I also know that it’s worth little more than a headshake and a chuckle before you just move on already. If you want to host a “rival” Christmas tree lighting in front of your office, fine. Whatever. What you don’t do is get together a bunch of your asshole friends and go to the official lighting just to sing “O, Christmas Tree” really loudly out of spite. And you don’t, in doing that, try to drown out the children’s choir on hand. The one that is full of children who’ve spent who knows how many hours rehearsing for this big deal and aren’t yet old enough to understand why grownups would engage in such childish behavior over semantics. And then you know what you don’t do? You don’t take to the comments section in the Providence Journal,* try to call out the choir director for being rude because she had the gall to interrupt your interruption, and then chalk it up to an imaginary conspiracy:

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8:46 PM on 12/6/2011
Some people started to sing, then realized the children were singing another stanza of their carol. Everyone stopped singing, then when the children finished that song, they started again. The choir director than motioned for the children to begin another song, AFTER "Oh Christmas Tree" was well under way. If anyone was rude, it was the adult directing the children. It was such an obvious set-up, everyone there could see it. Of course, it was intended to give the governor and his supporters something to complain about, as they look kinda stupid complaining about 200 plus people singing a Christmas carol.

Oh, for criminy. Yes, that's the stupid part. On the bright side, the whole mess made theDaily Show! Go Rhode Island.

In other news, I’ve decided that I shall rename my own Christmas tree Mrs. Timothy Mortimer Fancypants, and when my daughter complains, I shall blow an air horn at her. And Mrs. Timothy Mortimer Fancypants will be decorated with every single one of these ornaments, because they may be the best ornaments ever. 

* Sorry. I just couldn't stay away from the crazy. Comment on, you hilarious lunatics!

Ew.

Johnston. Stink lines added. (Map: RI Sea Grant)

I have a problem with Johnston. I admit it. Not the people in Johnston, necessarily; a good friend lives there, and my husband’s cousin, who’s a lovely person, does too. But Johnston also gave us Pauly D., and ruined zeppole day for a bunch of people last year. Also, it stinks. Literally. Johnston is where we Rhode Islanders send our garbage, and it gives the whole town the unmistakable odor of a pay toilet in Times Square. You know you’re passing through Johnston on 295 because that’s when you roll up your windows and hold your breath.

Lately, Johnston has gotten even stinkier. So stinky, in fact, that instead of the usual two or so complaints it receives each month about the smell, the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC  the dump) has gotten close to a hundred in November alone, and some have come from neighboring Cranston.  From ecoRI:

The "active face" of the 100-foot trash pile is getting about half the amount of trash from four years ago, so there is less material to cover the older, exposed and decaying waste… [and] heavy rainfall each of the past two years has flooded the system of pipes in the trash mound. The pipes typically vacuum the methane to a nearby power plant. But the water has slowed the system, allowing the methane to release into the air.

Wait wait wait. There’s a hundred-foot trash pile in Johnston? That’s the width, right? Please tell me they don’t mean it’s ten stories tall. And it’s because we as a state are producing less trash that the smell has gotten worse? That… well, it stinks. Apparently the dump has sent letters of apology and explanation to everyone in Johnston and Cranston, and they say that the solution is going to be to lay a foot of topsoil over all of the garbage, which will happen in a few weeks. This, however, is not fast enough for the state senate. One of Johnston’s state senators, Frank Lombardo, wants it done a whole lot faster, and he’s introduced legislation to make sure the dump never gets that smelly again, ever. From GoLocalProv:

Senator Lombardo will submit legislation to ensure that RIRRC is acting to effectively contain gases and odors on an ongoing basis. The legislation will prohibit the use of construction debris, including wall board, as part of the soil cover that caps the active area of the landfill. Further, the bill would allow independent inspectors access to the landfill on a random basis, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, to ensure they investigate and monitor the material being used as cover.

The legislation will also mandate air quality testing in Johnston and nearby communities, as well as a health-oriented analysis to protect the Johnston residents living closest to the landfill. It would assess a $5,000 per day fine for each day that air quality and odors exceed a certain threshold.

To recap: there is a smelliness threshold in Johnston. It can be smelly, but not too smelly. Then, we’re changing some laws.

Nature? Not in My Backyard!

Look at this.

Isn't that nice? I took this today at the crack of dawn while I was walking my dog. We went to the nature preserve across the street from my house, which we didn't even know existed when we moved to Cumberland. But it's there, and it's a great place to walk, especially now that the leaves are turned and the path is (relatively) clear. There's a little pond in this preserve, and the remains of old stone walls, and the whole thing abuts the Monastery, a town-owned piece of land where monks used to make jam until most of their buildings burned down in 1950. (The monks fled to Massachusetts, where they remain today, still making delicious jam.) Today the remaining buildings on the property house our town library and a few social services, and the land is covered with beautiful walking trails that go on forever.

Not many people use this preserve. There's nowhere to park if you drive to it, so it's pretty much used only by those of us who live in walking distance. Once in a while I'll come across another human being on the trail, but not often. And yet nothing will ever be built on this land, or on the hundreds of acres in similar conservation areas around town. I had to do some research just to find out where the other areas were, because they're not widely advertised. The one I use is marked only by a small sign that you can't even really see if you're driving by. It's all very New England. If you need to know it's there, you will, and if you don't, it's none of your business.

So I was kind of surprised to read in my little local paper that a handful of people in Lincoln, the town next door, are up in arms about someone who wants to build on a piece of land there. This developer owns a handful of acres and wants to build 20 houses, and then he wants to turn the rest of the land into a conservation area. I understand why people might be concerned about new house building, especially in the current economy, but it turns out that they're none too happy with the idea of a conservation area, too.

Wait, what?

What I gather is that certain residents don't want people like me, with my obvious riffraff ways, walking their dogs and such so close to their homes. One guy's deed bars him from building a fence, so he'd be forced to see me, and another lady thinks only dangerous criminals enjoy undeveloped nature:

"Look at your police records. Do you want those people in your back yard?" She [also] said she does not want to have to change how she lives in her own house, and putting a public space or a development of houses in her back yard would do so.

Seriously. I am dying to know who she's talking about in these police records. Also, what I wouldn't give to have my house back up to a conservation area. It's a selling point in real estate, for crying out loud. If there was nothing but wilderness behind my house, I might never draw the curtains at the back of my house, ever, even if I wasn't wearing pants, which would be always. The thing is, there's already vacant land behind these houses. What they don't want is for other people to know about it, and be free to enjoy it; i.e., walk through it silently, perhaps with an adorable dog, first thing in the morning.

The neighborhood might never recover.

Halloween: it happened.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Say, did you get a big pre-Halloween snowstorm? We did! We got the kind of late-October snowstorm that dumps six inches of incredibly wet, heavy snow on you, breaks your trees in half, makes a giant mess, and then melts away within hours of falling. We had 10- and 12-foot sections of maple break off in our front yard, but, thinking the worst was over, I managed to move them aside enough for my daughter to make a tiny, adorable snowman. Later that day another 12-foot section broke off and crushed it, leaving me to wonder in horror what would have happened had we been building that tiny, adorable snowman at a different time. Anyhoo.

A few days earlier a coworker passed along free tickets to the Roger Williams Park Zoo Jack-o-Lantern Spectacular, which is kind of a big deal among some around here, so we counted ourselves $24 richer and headed out on Friday evening to see what was what. We got there just as the sun was setting, and I was a little disappointed that the animals weren't staying up to join in the fun with us; they turned in as usual while we were guided along a very specific path to the pumpkins. In any case, it was... nice? It's one of those exhibitions of thousands and thousands of pumpkins - some intricately carved, some simply - lit up along a walkway along which many, many people move very slowly. Personally I find large groups of slow-moving people to be incredibly irritating, but I find large numbers of softly glowing anything to be very pretty, as long as those anythings are not lava pits or plutonium rods. There were some smoke machines and piped-in music thrown in, too.

Tell me: when did an approximation of a human face become an inadequate design for a jack-o-lantern? Somewhere along the line people moved away from faces and toward just about anything else. There were recently-deceased business visionaries:


Photo by Rick Payette on Flickr

Bumper Stickers:

Photo by Rick Payette on Flickr

Golden Girls:

Photo by Svenstorm on Flickr

And Dexter next to Lightning McQueen, because why not?

Oh, right: all those reasons why not. There were also Snooki and Pauly D pumpkins, but I'm having a hard time finding pictures of them. Maybe those abominations won't photograph. Like vampires.

It turned out that this was all a very roundabout way of finding out that my daughter is terrified of jack-o-lanterns. But really: why wouldn't she be? With the exception of the ones that are used as artists' canvases, these are big vegetables with faces on them that are burning up from the inside while looking at you malevolently. In this instance, by the thousands. And hundreds and hundreds of people are puttering through, drinking hot cider, eating fried dough, and taking picture after picture after picture. It's cool, but it's also really surreal. I can't even imagine how confusing it must be for a three-year-old. Maybe we'll wait a few more years before we go again.

In the meantime, let's take a minute to thank our sponsors:

Self-evident: Necco wafers are awful.

Awful. Just awful.

Photo: Necco

When it comes to products, there must be a certain security in being terrible. Even if your product is so terrible that most people won’t come near it, that means that some people will love it, and those people will have a hard time finding such terrible options anywhere else, so they’ll be your customers for life. Sure, eventually they’ll die, but there’ll still be a tiny population of people who actually find your product appealing, so you’ll never totally go out of business. It seems like a comfortable place to be as a businessperson. So why would you mess with a good thing?

A little while ago, the world’s leading manufacturer of awful candy, the New England Candy Company, or Necco, decided to fiddle withthe recipe for its disgusting Necco wafers, switching to natural colors and flavors. Because apparently, artificial colors and flavors were keeping Necco from capturing the wider bad candy market.  How many of us have said to ourselves, “Well, I want a candy that tastes like slightly sweetened dried drywall mud, but darn it, I don’t want all those icky chemicals!” or “Why can’t I get a clove-flavored candy that makes communion wafers seem tasty, but colored purple with beet juice extract instead of red #6?” Because, you know, the purple Necco wafers are clove-flavored. Clove.

This didn’t go over well. Apparently, there are Necco wafer enthusiasts who actually eat this so-called candy, and don’t just buy them to give to teenage trick-or-treaters or shingle the roof of a gingerbread house. And they don’t just eat them: they like them! They like them so much that they assailed Necco with complaints until they got the original recipe reinstated. Even worse – they stopped buying them! Sales fell 35%. I guess Necco doesn’t sell enough of their other terrible candy – mary janes, conversation hearts – to be able to withstand that kind of blow, so back they went.  

 I never realized that people actually ate Necco wafers until I moved to New England. I thought that they were only useful for projects, like gingerbread houses, where the goal was to make everything edible, even if only technically. Necco wafers are the kind of candy that passed for candy before there was good candy. Like hoarhound candy and anything molasses-flavored: these are the candies of the beforetimes, before Milton Hershey was born. There is no longer a need for these candies. Necco wafers, ribbon candies that come in a can, pillow mints. They should be eliminated from our collective human consciousness. But at my local market they sell them right next to the tasty candy, and someone must be buying them, right? Just like someone must be drinking Moxie. (That is, outside of the stateof Maine, where they use it to tell the native Mainers from the outsiders.)

Read and laugh: check out this article that claims Necco wafers have health benefits, due to the beet juice and purple cabbage and turmeric and stuff. (Someone needs to tell Livestrong that they’re going back to non-nature.)

Lists!

Lists! I love ‘em. Bulleted, numbered, whatever. They break things down and make them easy to understand. In general, the world confuses and alarms me, but when bits and pieces are presented to me in list form, it’s a little less threatening. The media has long since figured out that people like me are much more likely to pay attention to a story when it’s be-listed, and even more so when there are pictures involved! Pretty, soothing pictures…

Lately I’ve noticed an influx of “best state” and “worst state” lists, especially over on Bundle.com, which comes through on the picture angle as well. I always check lists out immediately to see where Rhode Island ranks. Because you know that if they could get away with it, the listmakers would just exclude the Ocean State entirely, because who cares? And really, can comparing anything about Rhode Island with, say, anything about California be considered statistically significant, even if you’re operating on a per-capita basis? The answer is no. And yet, we’re a state, so you have to include us. Ha! High five, Delaware.

Unfortunately, it seems like Rhode Island rarely wins in any of these list-based contests. And oftentimes, if we do win, it’s entirely erroneous: you’ll remember that a while back, we were considered one of thebest states to retire to and one of the best to be a commuter in. Both statements, of course, are lies. But what else are lists informing (or misinforming) the rest of the world about when it comes to Rhode Island? Let’s review. In list form.

• We rank 9th in the nation in monthly auto expenses. This actually might make sense, as it's kind of hard to rack up a lot of highway miles in a state this small. Also, foot-deep potholes, gigantic metal plates, and the most dangerous drivers outside of Italy are daily facts of life here, and they really wear out an automobile. Do you know what they do about potholes here? They don't fix them. No, if they do anything, they plop a cone in them. Do you know when you realize there's a cone in a pothole? When you're driving through that pothole, because most of the time it's just shy of cone-deep. It's only a matter of time before I have to replace one or both axles on my car.

• We are the 4th most expensive state in which to have a baby. Note how, on the infographic, the Rhode Island piece looks nothing like Rhode Island. No graphic designer is going to bother with all the islands, and honestly, how many people are going to know it's wrong? Moving on. While I don't dispute most of these costs, I would like to meet the person who pays $77 per month for school and childcare. Did the statistician responsible for these numbers figure in the childcare spending of people who don't have children? Because having a bunch of zeroes in the mix is the only way I can see $77 being right. I have a child in daycare, and $77 is accurate only if you add a zero and double it.

• There are only 15 states worse for business than Rhode Island. I really have no first-hand knowledge of this. I only know that it's a big point of left/right contention, with one side complaining that no one wants to do business in this state because of all of the taxes, and the other side telling them to shut the hell up. I do know, however, that we are considered better than New Jersey, which, you know: duh.

• Speaking strictly in terms of sexual health (and who doesn't?), we have some of the halest and sickest college students in the nation. Hallowed statistics factory Trojan and something called Sperling's BestPlaces came up with a sexual health report card, and, wouldn't you know it, Brown came in at number #4. Providence College, on the other hand, came in at #134 out of a total 140 schools. It's not that big of a surprise, given that Brown invites you to a campus-wide sex party during freshman orientation, while Jesuit PC requires mean old Sister Mary Mansname to accompany you on all of your dates, where she tells you constantly how much you disgust her and God.

• Lest you think that Rhode Island is number one in no category, be comforted: the Ocean State is #1 in suicide plans and attempts! Yeah! Suck it, everyone else. Wait. That's... that's terrible. God, that's depressing.

But you know what? I question the methodology of all of these lists. (Except the suicide one, which was done by the CDC, which... you know what? Just go with me on this anyway.) Know why? Look at this one about how much people in each state spend per capita at candy shops. Rhode Island doesn't even crack the top 20, but we're also not in the bottom 10. But candy... shops? This isn't about a population's penchant for sweets, as the title claims. This is more about the states in which candy shops survive. And even where they do, how many people are going to pay $20 a pound for handmade sel de mer caramels when they can go to the supermarket and get eighty pounds of M&Ms for ten bucks? Not many people, that's who. You know who's at the very bottom of this list? Mississippi. Tennessee. Other deep south states. You're going to tell me people down there don't have sweet, um, teeth? Have you been there? Parts of North Carolina make the the jolly, cheese-loving people of Wisconsin look downright svelte. My point is: I take these lists, even the pretty ones, with a grain of salt. Except when I agree with them.

It's official: ProJo = feh.

Look, I admit it: I have a lot of fun poking fun at the Providence Journal, but that’s only because it’s terrible. It misses stories other outlets in the state pick up (and in a state this small, that’s pretty much inexcusable), and half the time its journalism – if you can call it that – is inflammatory rhetoric intended only to provoke its army of crazy commenters. I mean, you can’t run the headline “Rep. David N. Cicilline, in danger of losing his seat in Congress, is running his campaign checkbook like there's no tomorrow” under a “NEWS” header. It’s someone’s opinion, complete with hyperbole. It’s news like Us Magazine is news. Also, the ProJo’s website has been obstinately holding onto its 1998-style website like it thought that style might come back around someday.* You know, the style people favored before the internet started to figure itself out: almost impossible to navigate, completely impossible to search, has ads everywhere, and leaves stories from ten months ago in sidebars to make them look like they’re fresh.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I clicked over to the ProJo site to see what, if anything, was going on (and something was!), and I found a clean and somewhat streamlined site that sort of makes sense, kind of! Even if it’s a little over-simplified, but whatever. Oh happy day! But what prompted the change? Was it a publication finally realizing that to serve its stated purpose to inform and educate its city’s citizens about what’s going on in their world, it had to do so in a way that was actually accessible and marginally cohesive?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha no. Of course not.

"Like other major newspapers across the country, we've come to the realization that giving away our content free is not a sound business plan," said Howard G. Sutton, publisher, president and chief executive officer of The Providence Journal. At first, the eEdition will be free to all web users, to allow them to see how it works. "People can experiment with it," Sutton said. After about a month, a paid subscription will be needed to view the eEdition. Those who subscribe to the printed newspaper seven days a week will receive access to the eEdition at no additional cost. Those with less-than-daily subscriptions will have to pay a nominal fee for the eEdition. Subscriptions only to the eEdition will also be offered.

So, to recap: reading the ProJo online will now cost money. Actual American money. Okay. That’s…. well, hold on. How much money are we talking about?

Pricing has not been set for any of those options. The Journal plans to offer an option to buy single copies of the eEdition, but is still working out technological issues, Sutton said.

Oh, for crying out... All right. You know, what, ProJo? You are fired. You are fired. You think you’re the only terrible paper in Rhode Island? Think again. Your headlines are barely better than this, and that’s in a paper that’s free (although sometimes I think they should pay me to read it). Good luck to you, ProJo, and may all your crazy commenters who’d rather die than pay for content find another outlet for their crazy craziness. 

* It won't.

Stop it, Maine.

One of the things I love about Rhode Island is its close proximity to Maine, where I had the pleasure of spending most of this past weekend. I love Maine. It's beautiful. I don't care too much for seafood, but I do love blueberries and maple syrup, and if I could manage to outfit my home and myself in nothing but LL Bean, I'd do it. But dangit if Maine doesn't have the crankiest people in the world living in it. They make me seem cheerful by comparison. And I love them.

To Mainers, you are either from Maine, or from "away," which includes all geographical points not in Maine. Maine is a state that relies heavily on tourism dollars, and they want you to come and spend them, but then they want you to get the hell out. In fact, there are more than a few Mainers who want to be able to tell you to get the hell out of their country, not just their state. That's right: there are Maine secessionists! Some want to join Canada, some want to be their own country outright, and some just want to split off from the rest of Maine.

I find that a lot of people have kind of a skewed picture of Maine, that's it's all Boothbay Harbor and Freeport. Not true. It has more snowmobilers and hunters than Martha Stewarts for sure. The town I spent my weekend in, Ogunquit, is pretty far on the hoity-toity end of the spectrum, but it still has the fine get-lost spirit of the rest of the state. Even the beautiful, seasonal displays, all awash in mums and squash and whimsical Halloween imagery have it:

In case it's too small, it says "Yes, they are real, do not touch." (Insert your own stupid joke here.)

I think my favorite sight in all of Ogunquit has to be this wall, though. It's the perfect metaphor for Maine. Beautiful, rugged, picturesque... but don't get comfortable.

Don't tread sit on me.

That Alec Baldwin. He's all right.

Was that so hard?

See? I knew things were going to start looking up for Central Falls. Today the Providence Journal reported that Alec Baldwin is tossing the Central Falls library $10,000 from his charitable foundation. Ever one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I initially thought this was chump change, it's actually a pretty sizable gift, given how Mr. Baldwin chooses to give his money away. His foundation is a pass-through; that is,  instead of having a big, big wad of money and only giving away what the government requires every year, like a lot of wealthy people do, he gives away practically everything he puts in it. And he gives it to a ton of different charities, instead of just one or two, which, again, a lot of rich people do. (Sorry for the philanthropy lesson. This is what I do for a living.) So... yay! Yay for Central Falls.

Apparently Jack Donaghy was moved to make the donation after reading this article in last Saturday's New York Times, which talked about a $100-a-head fundraiser for the library the night before. Depressingly, a library board member admitted that not many actual Central Falls residents were able to foot that kind of bill, but today's ProJo said the shindig managed to raise $15K.  But back to depressing: the ProJo thought it necessary to describe what the Hamptons are, since Baldwin is on the board of a library out there: "a popular beach resort on Long Island that caters to the rich and famous."  For heaven's sake. First of all, that's wrong. Second, does anyone out there really not know what the Hamptons are? Anybody?

So! Now all we need is for about a thousand more Alec Baldwins to send checks for ten grand, and Central Falls will be set. In the meantime, to show my appreciation, I'm going to rent Outside Providence. And watch it!

So are we Ogdenville or are we North Haverbrook?

I'd say we have more of a Brockway flavor.

Postscript on the whole Get Motivated! “traffic tsunami:” it never happened. Apparently only two-thirds of the expected 12,000 attendees showed up, and those 8,000 took the city’s advice to come early, carpool, or take the bus, because traffic was not only not heavy during yesterday’s rush hour, it was somehow lighter than usual. And Providence tried so hard! School was delayed, there were troopers all over the highway, and cops on every corner downtown to handle the influx of cars that never happened. So why did the city think 12,000 people were going to come to this thing? Because Get Motivated! told them so!

To add insult to injury, it seems that this Get Motivated! is even more of a scam than it looks to be on its smarmy face. It’s basically a day-long infomercial for some investment software, punctuated by bigshots telling you how to live your life. Tickets are $2 in advance, and when you give them your credit card number online, you’re also subscribing to said software for much, much more than $2, unless you opt out in writing by the Saturday before the conference. (If you show up at the door and want in, your ticket costs over $200.) Plus, you’re subjected to the decidedly non-comedic stylings of one Bill Cosby, who seems to have lost his damn mind:

Cosby wore a gray sweat suit with the words “Hello Friend” on his chest.

The Lord helps those who help themselves, Cosby said, but too many people forget the last three words.

“I’m not here to sell you God, I’m just here to tell you some good sense,” he said.

He told a story about Jesus meeting a supplicant who wants his high blood pressure cured.

“Don’t eat salt,” Jesus tells him.

The supplicant expected more — a healing touch, perhaps — and says he’s disappointed.

“Wait till you meet my father,” Jesus replies.

The moral? You are gonna die, salty. It's okay; so am I. All I ask is that you bury me in a gray sweat suit with “Hello Friend” written on the chest.

Motivation: Traffic. Beach balls. Anger.

No.

For weeks we’ve been seeing billboards around Rhode Island touting a Get Motivated! Business Seminar, a smorgasbord of whoop-de-doo motivational speakers that’s coming to  town to get everybody fired up about something or other. Even though there are big names (Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani) and a couple of “excuse me, what?” names (Terry Bradshaw, Bill Cosby) involved, the billboards make it seem gimmicky and awful. Different billboards have one person’s picture bigger than the others, implying that they’re the headliner, even though I don’t think there is one. I guess some people will only show up if Lou Holtz’ picture is bigger than, say, Rick Belluzzo’s. From what I gather, it’s kind of like a religious revival without the religion, or a rock concert without music. There’ll still be expensive food, though.

Anyway, apparently this thing is a hot ($2) ticket, because today the Providence Emergency Management Agency warned everybody that on Monday morning, when the thing starts, a lot of people are going to get motivated! to create a “tsunami of cars” by trying get into – and park – downtown. That is, in addition to the people who get into and park downtown every damn day to go to work. They’re expecting a shitstorm of such magnitude that school will be delayed by two hours so school buses won’t have to navigate the traffic. RIPTA is offering attendees discounted round-trip bus fares, so that's... well, that's happening.

And so, to recap: first thing Monday morning, approximately 12,000 people will make their way to the Dunkin Donuts Center in downtown Providence, where there are about 12,000 existing parking spots. If no one already lived or worked here, that would work out splendidly. But instead, Get Motivated! seems to have left the logistics of this thing (other than the provision of lots of beach balls) to fate, so I guess it’s everyone for themselves.

Admittedly, I’m kind of safe in this whole thing. I park downtown, but in a private lot in front of my office building, and I pay my employer every month for the privilege. It follows, then, that I will get motivated! to slash some tires and key some obscenities on car doors if I find no available spots and an excess of unfamiliar cars in the lot on Monday morning. Then again, I find that I’m getting motivated! to just take a sick day and bounce a beach ball against my living room wall by myself. 

Smartypants Town

As I have mentioned before, I work in an area of downtown Providence known as the Jewelry District, so named because back in the day, when a lot of jewelry was made and assembled in Providence, it was done around here. As far as I know, very little jewelry-related business occurs here now, and with the exception of a few bright spots (the Providence Animal RescueLeague, the Children’s Museum, Rue Bis), it’s kind of a dump. Not only is it next to impossible for the uninitiated to navigate, but most of its streets look like this:

and this:

and then, of course, some RISD kid breaks loose and does something pretentiously pointless like this:

Anyway. A while back, Brown University bought up a bunch of the old jewelry factories and announced that these few blocks would no longer be called the Jewelry District. With the big, shiny new medical school building it just finished, as well as all the biotech companies that are supposedly going move in because of said big, shiny new medical school building, thisneighborhood will soon shed its workaday past and be known as the Knowledge District.

Excuse me. First of all, let me just stress that I am all for the revitalization of this neighborhood. I for one would welcome streets that don’t make me feel like I’m driving on the moon without the benefit of lessened gravity. I dream of the day that the buildings around the one where I work don’t turn into underground clubs at night, leaving broken bottles, soiled condoms, and worse (yes, it gets worse) to greet us in the parking lot every morning. That would be delightful. But “Knowledge District?” Just like “Jewelry District” is a descriptive name, in that it implies that this district is where some or most of the jewelry-related business in town is (or was) conducted, “Knowledge District” implies that every other district is knowledge-free. And while Providence does have its share of dumbasses, they move about and settle freely, and rest assured that many do now – and will soon – populate the Knowledge District.

“Knowledge District.” It just reeks of… marketing consultant. Sometime, somewhere, a group of highly-paid contract marketers sat around a conference table late into the afternoon, brainstorming ways to reinvigorate the brand of a shitty neighborhood. Why not Brainsburg? Or Entitleton? Or Smarterthanyoufordshire?

Which brings me to another annoying descriptor I hear a lot around here: “brain drain.” Most people who use the term politely refer to it as the tendency for “college students” to leave Rhode Island  as soon as they graduate, but what they mean is that Brown Students leave. Because, really, is anyone mourning the Johnson & Wales kids who go back to New Jersey? Or the RISD kids who go home to stencil "th+ink" on their own town's vacant buildings? Most of the kids at URI, Providence College, and Rhode Island College are from here anyway. But heaven forefend the shining stars that are Brown students go back to their state or country of origin, because then all you’re left with are us slack-jawed yokels, elbow-deep in chowder and Pauly D haircuts. So thanks for that.

Heeding the signs.

While grocery shopping at Dave's this weekend, I saw this:

My favorite thing about this sign is the fact that it implies that at one point, escarole was for Italians only. The rest of us, making do as best we could with kale and arugula, could only press our sad noses up against the glass and watch them chop this unremarkable leafy green into their chicken soup while they twirled pizza dough, drank Chianti, waxed their moustaches and exclaimed “Madonna,” only it sounded like “Marone.” Sure, if you really wanted it you could grow it, but you risked having Italians come into your garden at night and wrecking up the place, and writing “Escarole  not-a for you!” in marinara sauce on the side of your house. But who liberated us? Who brought escarole out of the Italian darkness to where it truly belongs, crammed into the top produce row at Dave’s market, right between the curly endive and the lemon thyme, where no one, Italian or not, will notice it? Who on earth do we thank?

In other news, this was attached to the gas can I bought at the Shell near exit 10 off 295 in Cumberland this weekend:

What this tells me is that there are people who start fires with gasoline.

Ahem.

People. Who start FIRES. With GASOLINE.

ON PURPOSE.

And not just one or two. There are enough people who make the conscious decision to start fires with gasoline to warrant a point-of-purchase PSA campaign on gas cans that’s meant to say, “Hey. Hey there. Hi. You know that stuff you’re probably going to put in this shiny new gas can? Don’t use it to start a fire, okay? It’s wicked dangerous.”

I actually saw a person start a fire with gasoline once. It was my landlord when I was living in Lake Forest, Illinois, one of the few places where burning leaves in autumn was still legal. We spent the afternoon raking leaves into a gigantic pile, and when we were all finished, my landlord poured a gallon of gasoline over the whole thing. The resulting fireball shot so high into the sky that neighbors for three miles in every direction called 911 and sent about six engines to our house. My landlord, who was a true idiot, got a scolding from the firemen and was duly embarrassed. What I took away from that experience, aside from the sheer astonishment of seeing what I saw, was that it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen anyone do, before or since. And I’ve lived in New Jersey.

Honestly. Unless you are an active arsonist, when is the need for fire so urgent that, say, lighter fluid  -- or the naturally present oxygen in the air -- just won’t cut it? Gasoline is so flammable that oily rags and nail polish remover are ashamed to call themselves fire hazards if gas is within earshot.

I suppose it shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, we live in a world where people set off fireworks indoors and keep incredibly dangerous animals as pets that ultimately kill them.

No wonder we’re the dominant species on the planet! Go humans!

Thursdays of Begrudging Respect: a follow-up.

Hey, remember when this happened? Some got-dang fool in Tiverton got all ignorant in the comments section of an online story about a kid starting a gay-straight alliance club at her high school, and some feathers were ruffled, including mine. Especially because this knucklehead is an elected official, and the kind of elected official who has nothing better to do than troll local news sites and make stupid comments to somehow bolster his self-distinguished "straight shooter" cred.

Well, yesterday his fellow Rhode Island Republicans made their caucus a No-Dan-Gordon club. It seems his hobby of being a blowhard online got him the boot, but not for his comments about the Tiverton GSA. Nope, it was the apparent bashing of fellow Rhode Island Republicans in similar forums, the details of which aren't being offered by the ones doing the ousting. (I spent exactly five minutes looking for something he said that may have been deemed derogatory to his party, and I didn't find anything, so I gave up. Already I long to get those five minutes back.) And so, in a state with only a handful of Republicans holding elected office, where they can use as many warm bodies as they possibly can, this guy got the ax. But you know who's still in their good graces? This guy! This guy got pulled over in Connecticut with marijuana in his car and cocaine in his system, and claimed the East Haven police were unduly hard on him after they found out he was a Rhode Island lawmaker. Because, you know, what a bullseye to have on your forehead, right? Everyone knows that local police forces in Connecticut have had it out for Rhode Island State Assembly members for, like, forever. It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys, people.

And so, to recap, to keep your membership in the Rhode Island Republican caucus, you may 1) publicly disparage teenagers trying to encourage tolerance and understanding in their community; and 2) get caught driving under the influence of illegal drugs and have the enormous balls to claim to be the victim of some sort of loony imaginary discrimination. You may not, however, hurt your colleagues' feelings in the comments section of any website.

Just so we're clear.

Tininess: a re-education.

Guys. Guys. Calm down. Everybody just calm down. I know, I know --- we felt an earthquake. In Rhode Island. And that never happens, except for that one time when it did. And that other time. It’s crazy. Let’s all just take a deep breath, and then get to our Facebook pages to tell each other how it just happened, at which point we can agree with each other that yes, it did. It totally happened.

But let’s get one thing straight: you know how a lot of people saying how incredible it is that seismic activity that originated in Virginia could be felt here? Well, it isn’t. It isn’t at all. Know why? Because Virginia and Rhode Island are not that far away from each other. It’s true! 

Let’s review: Rhode Island is small. Very, very small. And it’s situated in a part of the country where states tend to be small. I think that when you live in a very small state surrounded by other small states, you tend to lose perspective, so as a public service, I’d like to provide a refresher course on just how small Rhode Island is. Ready?

Okay. First, let’s look at the distance between Mineral, Virginia, the epicenter of yesterday’s quake, and Providence, where I work, and where my office building swayed ever so gently for a couple of seconds.

The purple line is the way you’d go to drive from one city to the other, but since the effects of shifts in tectonic plates tend not to stick to interstate highways, I’ve added the red line, which is the straight-up, a-to-b, as-the-crow-flies distance. The purple line is just under 500 miles, and the red is about 430.

Now. In 1931, there was an earthquake of similar magnitude that had its epicenter near Valentine, Texas, and it was said that the effects could be felt as far away as Oklahoma. I’m not sure which part of Oklahoma the US Geological Service was talking about, so I’m just going to measure to from Valentine to the OK border. In this map, which is to the same scale as the one above, the purple line is 477 miles, and the red is just under 400. And that’s all in one state, albeit a gigantic one.

And so, as you can see, it is not unthinkable that an earthquake can be felt, however slightly, four or five hundred miles away from its source. Even though that’s equivalent to several Rhode Islands, that in itself does not mean that it’s a great distance. It is not.

Still not convinced? Okay. This is George, the world’s largest dog. He is comically huge, but it’s hard to tell in a picture just how big he is, so for scale, I have included Rhode Island (and let's remember that my graphic design skills are limited, please):

See? That gigantic, adorable dog will devour us all! Ha ha ha. If that still doesn't do it, here's a final example, and this should really leave no doubt in your mind that Rhode Island is not large. This enormous pumpkin was actually grown in the Ocean State. You may remember that stretch of early fall a few years back where the sun was blocked out and thousands fled in terror at the sight of a behemoth jack-o'-lantern-to-be getting ready to have its revenge on anyone who'd ever taken knife to squash before, which is pretty much everyone in New England. Anyway, the great big pumpkin was picked and taken across state lines to be shown at a fair:

See that fella standing next to it? No fewer than twelve Rhode Islands could fit around that guy's waist. He could attach them together with sturdy jump rings and wear them as a belt! Because the state is small.

Not so much a revolt as a flagrant disregard for agendas.

They should have called ahead.

So here’s what happened in Warwick the other day: a bunch of people marched to City Hall to crash a City Council meeting, where they expected to let the council know how they felt about the recent raise in the town’s car tax rate, which is not good. Not good at all. However, the members of the council were holding their meeting in the basement instead of the council chambers, and it’s not like they were hiding from the protesters or anything – it’s just where they usually meet, apparently. So when the council was informed of the protesters’ existence upstairs, they said that the car tax wasn’t on the agenda, and to go away. Which the protesters did, after apologizing for the mix-up and for wasting valuable council time.

Ha! No no no. That didn’t happen. Instead, the council let some of the protesters fill up the 49 available spectator chairs in the room, while the remaining 100 or so passed the microphone (who brought a microphone?) and yelled to each other how angry they are.

Nothing seems to make people gather into large groups and shout more than raised taxes, I think. And it’s true: raised taxes suck. And Warwickians’ particular problem is that the town is overvaluing vehicles and changed the definition of a or tax-exempt vehicle, or junker, from a car that’s worth $6,000 to one that’s worth five hundred bucks. In other words, if your car is up on blocks and you can’t even sell it for scrap, you don’t have to pay taxes on it, although you’ll probably have to pay some sort of zoning violation fine for having it on blocks in your yard. That is, if I understand the issue correctly, which I may not. Anyway.

Leave it to my friend the Providence Journal to take up the cause of a bunch of protesters by making them look like idiots:

[Some lady] of Warwick, says: "I just traded in my 1999 Rodeo and got $1,000 for it from the dealer — yet the city says it’s worth $4,425: Are they kidding?”

No, they’re not. But they’re probably in possession of a Kelly Blue Book, and they’re optimistically assuming that your car is in pristine condition. And if you’re determining the value of a car based on what a dealer will give you for trading it in, your problems extend well beyond your tax rate.

And then, according to the ProJo, this happened after the angry mob was denied admittance to the room and inclusion on the agenda:

“Boo! Boo!,” [the protesters] shouted. “Ten minutes! Ten minutes is all we ask!”

And then they broke into song! Well, no, they didn't, but wouldn't that have been awesome? A full-length musical about the trials and tribulations about skyrocketing car taxes in Kent County would give Arlene Violet’s mob musical a run for its money, I tell you what.

Tsk, tsk. Won’t someone – anyone – inject some sanity and rational thinking into this mess? Ah, yes. ProJo commenters to the rescue! Oh, ProJo commenters. I want to wrap you around myself like a crazy, cozy blanket, until I realize that the blanket is uncomfortable and giving me a rash, so I take it off. Here are some highlights so you don’t have to say goodbye to part of your soul by reading them all, like I did:

Get ready to pay even more..... the Warwick teachers union is cutting a deal for a new contract behind closed doors. Time to bend over taxpayers.

Okay. You know how some people have called for a moratorium on comparing anyone you don’t happen to like to Hitler? I think we should do the same for comparing actions, especially taxation, to anal rape. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure that anyone who’s lived through both wouldn’t put them in the same category.

I wish the 150-200 collectively stormed that room in the basement and physically dragged the council members to the council chambers to face their constituents. I think it's about time for the voters to really make themselves heard.

Simple assault = success! Come on, mob! Act like a mob if you're gonna.

 We need to set up a gullotine in the center of Warwick. If the swine cops from the city have a problem with it we can stick their heads in too.

Oh my goodness.

THE NATURAL ENEMY OF EVERY FREE = MAN/WOMEN =IS HIS /HER OWN GOVERMENT...THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE IS NO LONGER A SAFE PLACE FOR US = UNDER OUR CURRENT CROP OF POLITIANS =IN WASHINGTON AND AT HOME

O…kay?

Ejoy life in Warwick. I pay 0 taxes on my 2010 Altama here in Florida. I lived in Warwick and I lived in a few other cities in R. I. I don't miss the pot holes and high taxes. Keep voting for those good for nothings, and you will have to leave the state to live.

And yet… this guy reads – and comments on articles in – the Providence Journal every day. Every. Day. Five of the 114 comments on this particular article were his, and most were about how great it was to live in Florida, a state four out of five hillbillies describe as “too daing crazy what to live in.” In other words, unejoyable.

Bankruptcy is liberty. Bankruptcy is for when self-government has failed, as it has here. Don't pay this oppressive tax. Force a bankruptcy through civil disobedience.

Really? Wow. I guess my concept of bankruptcy was way off. It sounds fantastic.

Being a former Warwick resident I sympathize with the public, but the Open Meetings law restricts what the Council can be discuss at a meeting. It has to be on the agenda, which has to be published at least 48 hours before the meeting. The article says Mr. Cote (odd that his first name isn't mentioned) spent two weeks getting word out about the rally. I wonder why he didn't spend ten minutes to call a council member to get the issue on the agenda?

Hey, that’s… well, that’s a good point, actually. Touche, level-headed ProJo commenter! The day is yours.

Another state!

Austin: too hot for spelling.

In keeping with my jet-setting, high-flying ways, last week I got on a plane for the second time in 2011 to go to exotic Austin, Texas for a work conference. Texas, as you may or may not know, is very big. In fact, for scale, I refer you to my current favorite t-shirt, available at the very excellent Frog & Toad on Hope Street in Providence:

Most of my stay was (thankfully) spent in an air-conditioned hotel, but a few brief trips outside were most informative. Here's what you need to know about Austin:

1. It is hot. Sweet lord, is it hot. I mean... I mean, my god. Every day I was there had a three-digit high, except for Saturday, when the mercury dipped to a balmy 99. And it doesn't even start to get really hot until about four in the afternoon, which makes no sense. It was 95 when I stepped out of the airport at 11:30 p.m. on my first night there. Walking into hot Texas air for the first time felt like going outside in Las Vegas: like you're not on planet Earth because it simply cannot be this hot and still support human life. Anyway, it's hot, which makes seeing joggers on the street all the more irritating.

2. Sixth Street is Hipsterton. Hipsterville. Hipsterfordshire. I was told it reminds some people of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and I'll have to take their word for it because I've never been there, combined with the East Village, combined with the streets off of the Vegas strip. Apparently there are barkers trying to get tourists and conference-goers like myself inside to see various shows and take various tours, but I have no first-hand experience with them. And it's a good thing, too, because if someone is going to try to pester me onto a duck boat or into a dueling piano bar when it's a bajillion degrees out, that someone needs to prepare for a shin kick. From me.

3. There are bats! Why was I not informed of the bats? I didn't learn that Austin was home to the world's largest urban bat colony until a fellow conference attendee told me about it over continental breakfast one morning. Sure enough, there's a bridge in downtown Austin under which a million and a half bats live, and at sunset in the summer, they all leave to go feed, and it's awesome. People line the sidewalk on the bridge and the park underneath it, and there's free parking, and an ice cream man!

4. For all the pride it should take in its bats, Austin should feel an equal amount of shame for this thing:

No. Stop it.

If you can't tell from the picture, it is a bicycle bar powered by many people who were just talked out of money. With all riders pedaling furiously (in insane heat, remember), this thing goes about five mph (max), serves its riders beer (from a keg the riders provide) because no sober person would agree to this nonsense, and inspires me to throw rotting produce in its direction like nothing I have ever encountered.

And so, to recap: Hot. Hipsters. Bats. Shame. Austin! I should write a travel guide.

Central Falls: Rhode Island's Detroit!

Poor Central Falls. Could someone, somewhere, just cut this city a break for once? Last year it made national news when its drastically underperforming school system fired every single high school teacher. A couple of months later it made national news again when the entire city was placed into receivership (it would have straight-up gone bankrupt, but apparently that’s illegal in Rhode Island). Last month the state-appointed receiver shut down the town’s library, which, by all accounts, was nothing to brag about when it was operational, but it was the only library CF had. And now the receiver is asking everyone who receives a pension from the town – retired police, firefighters, etc. – to give back up to half of those pensions to keep this bowl-circling municipality from going entirely down the drain. And these aren’t the fat-cat public pensioners that seem to have everyone over at Fox News so upset, what with their yachts and walk-in humidors and such. The biggest pension in all of Central Falls is just over fifty grand, and the smallest, which shall henceforth be filed under “why bother,” is about four hundred bucks. A year. True, there’s one guy who “retired,” got his pension, and then was “rehired,” but he’s the exception.

Central Falls is tiny – the teeniest, tiniest city in the teeniest, tiniest state. It covers just one square mile, but it’s the most densely populated town in Rhode Island. Not surprisingly, it’s also the poorest. I served on a jury a few years ago and the case was a crime that happened in Central Falls. During voire dire, both the defense and the prosecution wanted to know whether prospective jurors had any “bad or negative feelings” toward the Central Falls police department or Central Falls in general. More than a few hands went up.

Its motto is “A City With a Bright Future,” because apparently no one could think of anything more depressing.

On the up side, I believe that things can only get better for Central Falls now. And if the movies have taught me anything, is that when a person (or, in this case, incorporated community) is truly at his/its lowest point, when all hope has been lost, something magical happens and turns it all around. I wonder what it’ll be for Central Falls? Will they strike oil on Broad Street? Will they find pirate’s treasure buried under the Price Right? Will a genie grant the town three wishes, and for once someone will have the common sense to wish for more wishes, for crying out loud? Whatever it is, I bet it’s going to be good. It has to be, right? I can’t wait!

What's wrong with this picture? (Part 2)

It's okay. Take your time.

Who's that, you might ask? Why, that's Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, Jr. two-time mayor of Providence and two-time convicted felon who enjoyed solid approval ratings while he was on trial for racketeering. He's our very own Marion Barry! It can't be denied that he did a hell of a lot to clean up the capital city in the 1990s, even if he did it by establishing a pay-to-play system that didn't let anything move forward until the right palms were greased. Anyway, you might notice that Buddy's picture is on jars of tomato sauce, because why not? You might not have recognized him because he used to look like this...

...until a particularly brave (and ultimately disappointed) hawk swooped down and snatched that roadkill-looking thing off of his shiny pate during a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Kennedy Plaza or some such. But back to what's wrong with this picture. Have you guessed it yet? Here's a hint:

That's right! One jar of the Mayor's Own Marinara Sauce will set you back Six. Damn. Dollars. Granted, this is at Dave's Market, where you pay a little more to keep things local, but still. Wait, though -- it's a little blurry, but the label says "Benefiting Providence School Children." That's nice, if not a little vague... does it benefit all of them? And if so, how? How much benefit are we talking about?

Okay. Here we go. It seems that the Providence school children who benefit from Buddy's sauce are a few who get $1,000 scholarships. That's... nice? No, no, it is. Hey, if I were offered a thousand dollars, I would not turn it down. (Offer me a thousand dollars right now. I'll prove it.) But with how much today's schools cost, how far does it go? Oh, crap. Do you think maybe the scholarships are so small because we're not buying enough six dollar jars of tomato sauce? That if we all joined together and bought as many jars of comically overpriced tomato sauce as we possibly could, many more Providence school children "with acute financial need" would get another drop in the bucket for their college tuition? Well, great. Now I have guilt!

If only I could find some comfort... say, by gazing upon a handsome face on a jar of demonstrably delicious tomato sauce... which retails at a reasonable price... and offers an un-vague description of the amount of profits it gives to charity...

Yep. That's the stuff.

To learn more about Buddy Cianci, why not check out his recently-released, overtitled memoir, Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale? Let me know how it is.

People are from here!

Today, we are all with James Woods.

Oh, joyous day! Just in case you haven’t heard the news, it’s official: Rhode Island’s own James Woods was nominated for an Emmy for his groundbreaking performance as Richard Fuld in the HBO miniseries Too Big to Fail. Which I totally saw. And am familiar with… you know, it being about banks? And the money, with the bailout and the things? I think? Yes, well. Moving on.

What’s that? You say you didn’t know that James Woods is from Rhode Island? It’s true! In fact, other people – several, even – are from Rhode Island. Sometimes people who are from Rhode Island leave Rhode Island, and then they do things you might hear about! And they’re not all embarrassing, either. There’s A.O. Scott from the New York Times; The Today Show’s Meredith Vieira; indie darlings Deer Tick; singers (and stepsisters!) Kristin Hersh and Tonya Donnelly;  SNL announcer Don Pardo; and the Farrelly brothers. John Cafferty, he of the Beaver Brown Band. And those are just the ones who are still alive! H.P. Lovecraft was from Rhode Island, and so was Nelson Eddy (look him up, children). 

Know who's not from Rhode Island? Seth MacFarlane. Nope. He's from Connecticut. Although he does provide the voice of Rhode Island on a regular basis. (It sounds just like Brian.)

Boom, boom, sigh.

At some point last year, when I wasn’t paying attention, fireworks were legalized in Rhode Island. Not the big, star-spangled types they shoot off from barges or the end zones of football fields, but sparklers and those things that snake along the ground, hopefully not setting other things or people ablaze. These are sometimes known as “why bother fireworks.” For the ones that bang – the still-illegal ones – you have to head to Connecticut or New Hampshire, where the biggest fireworks name in town is Three-Finger Eddie’s, which has to win the award for making business lemonade out of the oh-so-lemony dangers of a product.  (To get your karate supplies at the same place you get your fireworks, you’ll have to go a bit further.)

Last year they didn’t pass the law in time for vendors to get permits and set up shop in Rhode Island. This year is different. This year, they are everywhere. There are fireworks displays in the produce section at Stop & Shop. Pop-up stores line Route 2 in Warwick and Route 1 in Pawtucket to the Mass line. Farm stands. Farm stands! The storefront next to my favorite Chinese restaurant, where Curves used to be in Cumberland:

The "TNT" may be a little misleading.

They are everywhere. You’re probably sitting on some right now. Someone was selling them out of my car this morning, and that doesn’t even make sense.

The hilarious thing about this is that these aren’t even the kind of fireworks that go boom. The kind that someone in my neighborhood, wherever I have lived, has set off on a nightly basis for a week before and after the Fourth of July. It doesn’t matter if they’re legal or illegal. There is someone on my block, wherever I happen to be, who feels the need to blow shit up in the street, and I have a feeling that almost everyone in this country either has someone like that as a neighbor or actually is that person. And somehow those people will find the kind of fireworks that go boom, no matter how far they have to drive, no matter how much it costs. Did you know that the fireworks industry is utterly recession-proof? It is! Nothing – but nothing! – will stand in the way of people’s favorite way of saying “Happy Birthday!” to America: causing explosions.

To those of you looking forward to lighting fuses this weekend, I’d like to introduce you to someone:

This is Becky. She is my dog. Look at her sweet face! Look at it. Not only is she adorable, but she is super gentle and nice to boot. She is also enormous, weighing in at about a hundred pounds. We adopted her from a Southern rescue last year, and somewhere along the line in her previous life, she became terrified of loud noises. Know what she does when she hears one? She sits on you. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, she will find you, climb on top of you, and sit on you.  So, as it is for many dogs, the Fourth of July is hard on Becky.

Now, I would never ask you not to set off fireworks on the Fourth. I know it isn’t reasonable to ask people not to partake in a treasured tradition because it scares some people’s dogs. But could you toss her a bone, at least? I mean that literally. Toss my dog a bone. Or some beef jerky. She’s not picky. And you know what? It doesn’t even have to be Becky. Blow stuff up, but take something over to your neighbor’s dog, who’s probably cowering under the couch. It’s all about karma.

And if you see someone walking around with a gigantic dog wrapped around her shoulders like a stole, that’s me. I could probably use some Advil.