Leave Bambi alone!

DEM warns the public to stay away from baby deer

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is advising the public to avoid approaching fawns that may appear abandoned.

Unless a dead doe is found nearby, fawns are not considered abandoned.

During the first week following birth, fawns are incapable of following their mother and will often lie in a curled position on the ground hidden in grass or sparse brush.

Typically the mothers are nearby and will come to the fawn a few times during the day or after dark for feedings.

Anyone who observes a fawn in this condition should leave it alone, as the doe will return.

People are encouraged to heed the following should they encounter a fawn:

E-waste drop-off in Charlestown on Saturday

Trump dump

Trump campaign is broke, judge to release documents about Trump University, Marco Rubio apologized for pointing out Trump has a small penis.

By Gryphen at The Immoral Minority

Don't believe the biased and phony media quoting people who work for my campaign. The only quote that matters is a quote from me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016

You heard him folks, the only person whose words matter are Donald Trump's.

And here we go.

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:

Donald Trump's campaign has alerted Senate Republicans that he won't have much money to spend fending off attacks from Hillary Clinton over the next couple months.

Development and lack of leadership threaten farms and forests

Open Season on Rhode Island’s ‘Special’ Places

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

Nearly 30 percent, and growing, of Rhode Island’s land total has been developed and covered by impervious surfaces such as parking lots, like this one in Lincoln. (ecoRI News)

The Ocean State’s collection of natural resources is frequently called “special.” Rhode Island can’t talk about the greatness of local food enough. But many of the state’s collective actions work against the very commodities we enjoy praising.

Well-meaning Rhode Island bureaucrats frequently promote the state’s support of a regional project touting the ambitious goal of producing 50 percent of the food New England consumes from its six states by 2060.

Last year, at the one-year anniversary of the Warren-based food incubator Hope & Main, their boss, Gov. Gina Raimondo, announced that a statewide food and agricultural plan was in the works. Earlier this month, Sue AnderBois was hired to serve as Rhode Island’s first food chief. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Protection (DEM) hosts summer farmers markets at state-owned properties.

Unfortunately, when it comes to funding and planning for real growth of local food or protecting special places, the state’s elected officials are often holding out their hands, routinely ignoring taxpayer-funded plans or giving more leeway to developers.

Baggy genes

From Fake Science

Donald Trump's "Worker Party"

Search for “drowned sites” starts Sunday

Narragansetts team up with URI researchers to survey submerged ancient sites

Elizabeth Rau

John W. King, a professor of marine geology at URI’s Graduate
School of Oceanography, and his team on the Endeavor last year.
Photo courtesy of John King.

The University of Rhode Island research vessel Endeavor will depart Sunday, June 5 for a four-day expedition to study submerged Native American cultural sites in Rhode Island Sound.

John W. King, a professor of marine geology at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, will lead the trip, which is part of a five-year $2 million project to identify underwater ancient sites on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The study is a team effort involving GSO, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office, and the state Coastal Resources Management Council.

The goal is to develop “best practice’’ national protocols for identifying and protecting ancient Native American cultural sites preserved on the ocean floor. Known as “drowned sites,’’ these areas were submerged by rising sea levels caused by melting ice sheets over the last 23,000 years. 

Scientists—and tribal oral historians—believe Native Americans lived there when the area was dry land.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defends right of domestic abusers to own guns

Compares domestic violence convictions to traffic offenses

By Samuel Warde

EDITOR'S NOTE: While the US Supreme Court ignored Thomas's argument, the RI General Assembly pretty much followed Thomas's opinion by refusing to enact legislation to broaden the ban on Rhode Island domestic abusers from owning guns.

The Supreme Court handed down three opinions on Monday: one a landmark case handing pro-choice advocates the biggest Supreme Court victory on abortion in decades; another opinion overturning former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell’s public-corruption conviction and “imposing higher standards for federal prosecutors who charge public officials with wrongdoing;” and a third opinion holding that a federal “law prohibiting gun ownership does extend to individuals convicted of reckless domestic assault.”

As PolicyMic reports that “In February, the Voisine v. the United States case moved Justice Clarence Thomas, famously silent, to ask his first question during oral arguments in 10 years. “

At the time, he asked U.S. Assistant to the Solicitor General Ilana Eisenstein whether “recklessness” is reason enough to warrant a “lifetime ban on possession of a gun, which, at least as of now, is a constitutional right.”

Tomorrow morning at Blue Shutters Beach, Jason and Flint go home

Mystic Aquarium's Animal Rescue Team Set to Release Two Seals

Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue Team

Taken at an earlier Blue Shutters seal release (Photo by Will Collette) 

Mystic Aquarium is proud to announce the release of two seals, Jasper and Flint. They will be released at Charlestown’s Blue Shutters Beach, East Beach Rd.

The release will take place at approximately 9:00 AM, Thursday, June 2, 2016. The public is invited to see these two healed and well sea critters return to their natural habitat.

Our Poverty Myth

The illusion that people are to blame for their own poverty goes back centuries in our culture.

By Jill Richardson

If you’re poor, many Americans think, it’s your own fault. It’s a sign of your own moral failing.

I don’t personally believe that, but the idea has roots in our culture going back centuries.

In The Wealth of Nations, the foundational work of modern capitalism, Adam Smith extolled the virtues of working hard and being thrifty with money. That wasn’t just the way to get rich, he reasoned — it was morally righteous.

Sociologist Max Weber took the idea further in describing what he called the Protestant work ethic.

To Puritans who believed that one was either predestined for heaven or for hell, Weber wrote, working hard and accumulating wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. 

Those who got rich, the Puritans thought, must have been chosen by God for heaven; those who were poor were damned.

Praise and support for General Stanton Inn campaign from the folks who saved the Historic Narragansett Towers

Similarities between effort to save the General Stanton Inn and their fight to save the Towers

David E. Ousterhout, President, Friends of the Historic Narragansett Towers, Inc.

I am a former member of the Narragansett Town Council and President of the Friends of the Towers. 

Twenty eight years ago I became involved with a group of Narragansett residents who came together for the purpose of developing a plan to restore, preserve and renovate the Historic Narragansett Towers for use by the public. 

At that time The Towers, as it is known today, was a deteriorating monument to Narragansett’s past history and did not provide any useful benefit to the public. 

While it was owned by the Town, there was no clear vision for it and there was a reluctance to even spend the necessary funds for simple maintenance and preservation efforts. 

Today The Towers stands as testimony to what a motivated group of citizens can accomplish when encouraged and supported by their local government.  It has become an iconic reminder of Narragansett’s history and a very busy venue for both public and private events, attracting visitors and providing a source of new business to local merchants.

Capital restoration and renovation funds were provided over the years by the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission grants, fundraising activities and allocation of excess revenue from its operations. 

It has not been a financial burden to the Town and, other than modest investments in capital repairs and improvements, has always paid its own way.

Crowd-funding? Cool!

Anti-abortion does not equal "pro-life"

House OKs legislation to allow limited retail sales by breweries

Bill is designed to help small businesses, promote ‘beer tourism’ industry in Rhode Island

Legislation cosponsored by Rep. Teresa Tanzi to allow breweries, distilleries and wineries to sell limited amounts of their products to visitors for sampling and off-site consumption has passed the House of Representatives.

The bill is intended to assist microbreweries, in particular, which are banned entirely from selling their products at retail at their plants under current law, but would like to do so to be part of the growing “beer tourism” industry.

“Microbreweries are a growing sector in Rhode Island, and we should give these hardworking small businesses the opportunity they need to get their products into the hands of consumers, who have been asking us for increased access. Many don’t realize the value these small manufacturers add to our economy, and increased sales will equal more revenue and more hiring locally,” said Representative Tanzi (D-Dist. 34, South Kingstown, Narragansett).

CEOs Paid 335 Times Average Rank-and-File Worker

Outsourcing Results in Even Higher Inequality

From the AFL-CIO’s Executive PayWatch

CEO pay for major U.S. companies continues to soar as income inequality and outsourcing of good-paying American jobs increases.

Outsourcing has become a hot presidential election topic with candidates calling out corporations who say they need to save money by sending jobs overseas.

Meanwhile, according to the new AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch, the average CEO of an S&P 500 company made $12.4 million per year in 2015 – 335 times more money than the average rank-and-file worker.

The Executive PayWatch website, the most comprehensive searchable online database tracking CEO pay, showed that in 2015, the average production and nonsupervisory worker earned approximately $36,900 per year, a wage that when adjusted for inflation, has remained stagnant for 50 years.

“The income inequality that exists in this country is a disgrace. We must stop Wall Street CEOs from continuing to profit on the backs of working people,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.