Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 10

Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution."   -  John Gierach

I had hoped to be done with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by now, planned to wrap up the entrails of the Whalerock blowfish in last month’s cyber-newspaper and bury the remains in the compost partition of my aging Macbook hard drive. 

The continuing adventures of Droney

The Return of Droney

By Tom Tomorrow

Click here for the whole cartoon.

Just Don't Say Climate Change

Global warming can't be legislated away.

New England if the polar ice caps melt

By William A. Collins and Emily Schwartz Greco

Our weather keeps getting weirder. We're seeing record-busting heat waves, droughts, thaws, and forest fires, freakish "derecho" storms, and spring striking weeks too early. Most of these trends are either caused or exacerbated by another, underlying problem: climate change.

Yet the more extreme our weather becomes, the less attention the media pays to this deadly scourge. Conservative politicians, determined to deny the existence of global warming, are taking advantage of this information vacuum to mandate collective ignorance.

OMD PD

Dog Survives 11-Miles While Wedged in Car Grille

·         By Samantha Turner in the Narragansett-South Kingstown Patch

If ever there was a dog that deserved the name Lucky, it would be this poodle. 

According to East Providence police, the little pup (named Suzie) survived an 11-mile journey from Taunton to EP – while wedged in the grille of a car. 

The dog was struck by a car after it ran into the road. The driver, unaware there was a canine stuck to his car, continued driving until someone flagged him down in EP. 

Suzie somehow managed to avoid serious injury, suffering a concussion, and was later reunited with her owners.

Learning from 38 Studios mistakes

Committee hears a different proposal for handling economic development

By the Legislative Press and Public Information Bureau

STATE HOUSE – The General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Economic Development heard yesterday from a group of business and development leaders in the state pushing for more interaction between the state and its universities and the private sector.

Presenting a report developed earlier this year, “Rebooting the Economic Development System in Rhode Island,” to the joint committee were its three authors: Scott A. Gibbs and Marcel A. Valois, president and vice president, respectively, of the Economic Development Foundation of Rhode Island, and Gary S. Sasse, director of the Bryant (University) Institute for Public Leadership and former director of both the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council and Department of Administration.

Led by co-chairpersons Sen. James C. Sheehan and Rep. Donna M. Walsh, the joint committee is exploring proposals to strengthen Rhode Island’s economy in the midst of both a slow recovery from recession and the failure of a state-backed investment in Curt Shilling’s now-bankrupt video game development company, 38 Studios.

Lisa DiBello to appear on "Let's Make a Deal"

No, this has nothing to do with her $1.5 million lawsuit against Charlestown

Apparently, the costumes are a standard thing on the show

By Will Collette

Council member Lisa DiBello has apparently chosen "Let's Make a Deal" as her 2012 campaign slogan, instead of her her 2010 motto "Because I Care."

After she filed her $1.5 million lawsuit against the town, that "Because I Care" slogan led to questions about what, exactly, she cares about.

The Providence Journal reports that DiBello will appear as a contestant on the game show, "Let's Make a Deal" which will air Thursday at 10 AM on WPRI (Channel 12). I swear I am not making this up. Click here to read the Journal story yourself.

Connie Baker and George Tremblay need to get on the same page

George Tremblay, saving Charlestown
from elderly scam artists.

Are they for letting millionaires game the affordable housing system or against it?

By Linda Felaco

If you’ve been following the news, Planning Commissioner and Charlestown Citizens Alliance Town Council candidate[1] George Tremblay has just completed his analysis of Low- and Moderate-Income Housing in the Chariho towns and Exeter, and he’s concluded that we’re in danger of building affordable housing for the elderly only to have millionaires purchase the units as investment vehicles. This could happen, he claims, because only income is used in determining who qualifies for affordable housing and not assets.

Now, George[2] would have readers of Progressive Charlestown believe that that wasn’t actually in his report; he claimed in a comment that he’d only suggested that as “an example for potential abuse” in an aside to the Westerly Sun reporter after giving his presentation on his “analysis.” But the fact is it’s there in writing in his report. (Click here to read it; the bit about elderly embezzlers appears on page 7.) Well, not writing, typing. As in it’s in the typewritten part of the report and not the handwritten part. (While you’re in there, take a gander at Appendix X if you don’t believe me about the handwritten part.)

Then again, Tremblay also thinks Progressive Charlestown’s “benighted readers … will neither read nor understand” the links we provide, so it appears he was counting on people not actually reading his report.

But I digress.

Eat some chocolate, George

Chocolate Makes Snails Smarter

Just what we need - smarter snails

From Science Daily

Type the word 'superfood,' into a web browser and you'll be overwhelmed: some websites even maintain that dark chocolate can have beneficial effects. But take a closer look at the science underpinning these claims, and you'll discover just how sparse it is. 

So, when University of Calgary undergraduate Lee Fruson became curious about how dietary factors might affect memory, Ken Lukowiak was sceptical. 'I didn't think any of this stuff would work', Lukowiak recalls.

Despite his misgivings, Lukowiak and Fruson decided to concentrate on a group of compounds -- the flavonoids -- found in a wide range of 'superfoods' including chocolate and green tea, focusing on one particular flavonoid, epicatechin (epi).

TONIGHT: Free dinner in Westerly with Sen. Whitehouse

TONIGHT: Meet your soon-to-be new State Senator

CORRECTED: Four proposed Town Charter changes on the November ballot

How much will these proposed Charter changes change your life?

Donna Chambers
You can't always get what you want

By Will Collette

Correction: I incorrectly listed Gary Fish as a member of Ill Wind RI. He informs me that he was not and is not a member of Ill Wind RI, nor is he in any way affiliated with the CCA. Sorry for the error - wc.

Charlestown had a very close call over the past year. We could have had some pretty terrible stuff on the November 6 ballot, but thanks to some pushback, it looks like we dodged a bullet.

I’m talking about Charlestown’s mandated biennial ritual of considering changes to Charlestown’s Home Rule Charter – our town Constitution – whether or not such changes are needed, useful, practical or desireable.

When it was time to make the appointments for this year’s Charter Revision Advisory Committee (CRAC), the applicants all came from the Ill Wind RI anti-wind energy NIMBY group. All seven Six of the seven members of the CRAC were plaintiffs in the long, messy and ultimately rejected litigation that has tied up the Whalerock industrial wind farm project. 

While I’m no fan of Whalerock – in fact, I’ve written often about its impracticality – it seemed odd to me that the Ill Winders would decide to try to stack the Charter Revision group.

Lucky Ducky

Better Satire, Please

By Ruben Boling

Click here for the whole cartoon.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus.

Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and dutifully cataloged as NGC 7023 this is not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers.

Still, this remarkable image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries in impressive detail. 

Within the Iris, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. 

Central filaments of the dusty clouds glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light.

Infrared observations indicate that this nebula may contain complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The bright blue portion of the Iris Nebula is about six light-years across.

Choking on electronic waste

Recycling vs. Convenience: What Are You Doing With Your E-Waste?

By Allison Winter, ENN.com

We all have managed to stockpile an old computer or two, maybe a couple of corded phones or even a two hundred pound TV set from 1985 that you simply don’t know what to do with. As your electronic waste, or e-waste accumulates in your garage collecting dust you decide it’s finally time to take action. 

You can either take everything to your local recycling facility, which is half an hour away and only open for two hours on the first Saturday of the month or you can throw the pieces out with your trash.

Ron Areglado: Not-so-civil Mr. Civility

Practice what you preach

Collage by Lin Collette. See more by clicking here.

By Will Collette

On September 28, the Westerly Sun published a version of this piece as a letter to the editor.

In it, I challenged the credibility of CCA Town Council candidate Ron Areglado to deliver a lecture on civility when he and his CCA cohorts have been far from civil during their six-year reign of invective in Charlestown.

Areglado’s remarks published in the Sun on August 31 reminded me a lot of President Lyndon Johnson and things he said in his final years in office as he took increasingly hard criticism for the carnage in Vietnam. LBJ, who had a reputation as one of the meanest, nastiest politicians in 20^th century politics, discovered civility and tried to use it to fend off his critics.

I think Areglado may be taking a page from LBJ’s playbook, especially this famous LBJ homily on civility: “I believe it very damaging to the American nation to have opposition for opposition’s sake, and to have blind opposition…I try to keep as far away from partisanship and campaigning as I can.” 

(Lyndon Baines Johnson, news conference, April 18, 1964).