RI Community Food Bank Open House on Saturday

Talks resume today at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital

Hospital being run by scabs while management keeps 800 nurses and technicians locked out
By Will Collette

Even though, by Charlestown's way of measuring distance, the brutal labor dispute at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, is a galaxy away, the outcome of that battle will have a profound effect on health and hospital services much closer to home.

You can bet that workers at Westerly Hospital are watching carefully to see how their sisters and brothers do in their battle with the same management that now owns Westerly Hospital.

How this battle goes will provide a pretty good preview of what will happen in under three years when the Westerly nurses and technicians will be sitting across the bargaining table facing the same managers who have been using a Florida temp agency to fly in strike-breakers in from all over the country to fill their jobs at up to $200 an hour.

When it's Westerly's turn to face these guys, you can bet that this time, the L&M managers will try to blackmail workers into accepting a bad deal by using Westerly Hospital's continued existence as hostage.

Let's take a look at what L&M management is willing to do to squeeze its unionized medical staff into submission.

Charlestown holiday events

CEOs Against Grandmas

The loudest calls for Social Security cuts are coming from CEOs who will never have to worry about their own retirement security.

By Sarah Anderson

David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell, has more than $134 million in his personal retirement fund. If I were sitting on a nest egg that big, I might feel a bit sheepish about telling ordinary grandmas and grandpas to take a cut in their Social Security payments.

But Cote — and leaders of many other large corporations — don’t see it that way. In fact, as Congress prepares for yet another budget showdown at the end of the year, the loudest calls for Social Security cuts are coming from CEOs who will never have to worry about their own retirement security.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The Second Season – On The Fly

Episode 3 – Fly-Tying For Retired Tie-Dyers

"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

By Robert Yarnall

In case you didn't know, may have forgotten, or just really don’t care, be advised that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was spawned in 2012 as a serialized account of a small boatload of perpetually perturbed neighbors who set out to harpoon a wind energy project known as “Whalerock.”

The Big Whalerock Circus has pretty much packed up and left town, leaving behind just a small group of clowns who seem to believe they still have some mileage left on them thar shoes. So Whiskey Tango Foxtrot continues into a second season, following their goofy footprints even as they try to cover them up, recalcitrant doggies pooping their way across neighborhood yards.

Sure, our aging Whalerockers and Whalerockettes will cleverly (they think) say, “So whaddya expect, the guy’s tellin’ fish stories!!!...” But serious anglers know it is not about  fish, it’s about fishing: who knows what lurks in the shadowy depths of The Moraine Zone?

Abandon All Common Sense, Ye Who Enter There…

Oooo, just terrible!

Unmitigated disasters reported by Faux News

By Tim Eagan

Click here to see them all.

A Typhoon Tax

Climate action is the right thing to do and smart economics.
By Janet Redman and John Cavanagh

Americans are generous by nature. About half of U.S. families contributed to earthquake relief in Haiti in 2010, and millions of us have already supported typhoon aid for the Philippines.

But there’s a golden opportunity for our country to do much more. We can help generations of Filipinos withstand the typhoon seasons that rock the island nation every year from summer to fall. The most meaningful thing the United States could do is take decisive action on climate change.

“Johnny, Johnny! Do you love me? Say that you love me.’’

International expert in fashion theory will give Dec. 5 talk at URI about how clothes shape narrative in film

Marlene Dietrich holding up her bloodstained dress
in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, as she utters,
“Johnny, Johnny! Do you love me? Say that you love me.’’
Photo courtesy of URI professor Linda Welters.

From Elizabeth Rau, URI

KINGSTON, R.I. – It’s an iconic scene in cinematic history: Marlene Dietrich making a grand entrance in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright. But all eyes are not on the sultry German actress. It’s her billowy Dior dress that’s grabbing all the attention, especially the hideous bloodstains marring the white silk.

In the lexicon of film theory that’s called “cinematic negative wardrobe,’’ an idea that Jonathan Faiers, a writer, lecturer and artist from England, will discuss during a talk at the University of Rhode Island next month.

His talk, “Dressing Dangerously: Dysfunctional Fashion on Film’’ will start at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5 in Room 271 at Chafee Hall on the Kingston campus. The talk is free and open to the public.

“Clothes signal meanings, and we are looking forward to having Jonathan Faiers decode those meanings for us," said Linda Welters, professor and co-chair of URI’s department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design. “All are welcome to the talk.’’

Retiree health benefits in trouble?

The Manufactured OPEB Crisis
By Tom Sgouros in Rhode Island’s Future

I read in last Monday’s newspaper about the terrible state of the retiree health-care system in our cities and towns. The trust funds that are supposed to pay for retiree health benefits (called “Other Post-Employment Benefits” or OPEB) decades into the future are deeply in the red. 

But as usual, there are some very troubling assumptions made in order to paint this bleak picture. If you do the math, you’ll see that the actuaries who predict this disaster do so by assuming a catastrophe.

Where does this terrible debt come from?  It comes from the exploding cost of health care, extended out a few decades into the future. Even a small inflation rate, sustained over 50 years, can become a huge number. So what have the actuaries assumed in order to make these bleak predictions? 

L&M Hospital Management Chooses "Reckless, Irresponsible" Lockout Over Critical Patient Care

Nearly 800 nurses and technicians rebuffed when attempting to return to work after calling end to a four-day strike over the corporation's unfair labor practices and their impact on health services

From Matt O’Connor 

Last Friday's union rally in front of L&M

Editor's note: L&M now owns Westerly Hospital, so the outcome of this dispute offers a pretty good preview of what might happen at Westerly Hospital when their next contract expires.

New London – Saturday night, the administration of Lawrence & Memorial (L&M) Hospital locked out its registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), healthcare technicians and technologists immediately following the end of a legally protected job action. Lawrence & Memorial Corporation (LMC) representatives refused to allow the caregivers to complete an unconditional return to their patients offered before they began the first strike in the hospital’s 101-year history. The local unions representing the nurses and techs on Tuesday filed a complaint seeking injunctive relief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the event LMC attempted their threatened lockout.

Get the earplugs and smelling salts ready

Morainiacs suffer big setback in effort to block Ninigret Park concerts

The peace and serenity of Ron Areglado's ashram is about to be disturbed

By Will Collette

I was wrong. I repeat, in case Mike Chambers misses it, I was wrong.

After Mike and Donna Chambers plus other members of Bishop Ron Areglado’s Mother of the Moraine Temple on Partridge Run (Morainiacs, for short) threw a tantrum at the October 7 Charlestown Town Council meeting against Frank J. Russo's proposal to hold one or maybe two concerts in Ninigret Park in 2014, I was certain Russo’s plan would die a swift death.

In fact, I predicted how it would happen. I said that once the federal government shut-down was over, the US Fish & Wildlife manager of the Ninigret Wildlife Refuge Charlie Vandemoer would be asked by Planning Commissar and CCA Party Leader Ruth Platner to nix the project as a disruption to the National Wildlife Refuge.

But I was wrong. 

Keep Your Family Protected from Online Surveillance

by Kurt Porter

Perhaps no political issue in the past year has raised more questions and demanded more answers than the American government's policy of domestic spying. The concern about cyber intruders peeking into your life should not be downplayed, since Google's annual Transparency Report indicates that government requests to remove content and censor data has grown more than ever. The threat of an entire government agency devoted to surveillance may seem overwhelming, but the average American can protect himself and his family's privacy with only a few simple steps.

Rainbow over Charlestown

Rain is pulling out...

Even small doses at long distances cause problems in infants

Fukushima fallout

From: Chris Busby, ENN.com. The Ecologist, More from this Affiliate

A new study finds that radioactive Iodine from Fukushima has caused a significant increase in hypothyroidism among babies in California, 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean.

The Fukushima catastrophe has been dismissed as a potential cause of health effects even in Japan, let alone as far away as California.

Tobin should practice what he (the Pope) preaches

Pope Francis is a progressive

By Bob Plain in Rhode Island’s Future

“Inequality is the root of social ills.” – Pope Francis

On March 13, the day he was first elected CEO of the Catholic Church by its Board of Directors, I posed this question to twitter: “Is Pope Francis a progressive?”

Yesterday the Pope provided pretty conclusive evidence that I was right.

Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?