Oliver Platt as Buddy Cianci

Oliver Platt playing the role of Buddy Cianci in the Michael Corrente film based on the luminous book "The Prince of the City" by the ProJo's Mike Stanton? Say it ain't so, Oliver. Why would any decent actor want to be identified with the inglorious portrayal of our RICO-challenged mayor? Well the book pictured Cianci as he really is - vain, vindictive, intemperate, self-destructive, delusional, conspiratorial, pig-headed and self-indulgent. And those are the good things! Maybe Oliver in makeup can add more dimensions.

URI Retirement Experiment a Mixed Bag

How did the URI initiative to pay senior faculty a $20,000 retirement bonus work out? Just so-so, suggests an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Forty-six professors and administrators accepted the buyout but about 20 usually retire anyway in a typical year. And administrators may have departed in greater numbers than profs. Of about 650 professors, the article said, just under one-third were age 59 or older, and 105 were 65 or older, according to a study earlier this year of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members while a few were rapidly approaching 80. The big age problem at the state university seems to be that the existing teaching skills of older teachers don't necessarily match those of incoming students. "We needed to create a little more balance in the age profile," observed newly-arrived Provost Don DeHayes.

Lobbying Elected Officials a Growth Industry

The U.S. Capital lobbying industry ballooned almost 8 percent to $2.79 billion in hands-outs last year. That's an outlay of $17 million for each day Congress was in session. More than 200 former members of Congress have shimmied through the revolving door in recent years, continues a New York Times editorial. Outside of Washington, voters need to confront candidates who demonize the lobbyists who are actually silent underwriters of their candidacies, the Times notes. It's curious that our RI congressional delegation - known for their verbose criticism of everything else - hardly ever takes formal notice of the excesses of lobbyists, fearing, no doubt, we'd all find out the lobbyists are so much more influential with them than we are as dopey back-home voters.

Rappleye Takes One to the Head (or Mouth)

Score one for Channel 10. The NBC affiliate rejected Governor Carcieri's request for an apology for tying the governor to an ethics violation when he hired a distant cousin-in-law to his executive staff. But the station did acknowledge that roughneck interviewer Bill Rappleye went overboard with his aggressive demeanor in querying the governor on the subject. "Inappropriate," said a station spokesperson. A better word is "obnoxious." But Rappleye is already on the projected "pink slip" list at NBC10 so time will tell. It's reported nine Ch. 10 employees have already been axed.

Father, Forgive My Gross Political Weakness

Jack Reed was one of the last delegates to endorse Barack Obama. How to define the word "opportunism?" It begins with the words "me first."

Thanks for Nothing

What do private sector workers do when the temperature hits 90 degrees? They continue mixing cement, replacing roofs, shoveling topsoil. Public employees in Providence? They go home - with pay - compliments of, well, you! The outcry has led to cancellation of the benefit and making it a non-pay day if the whimps go home.

Newspapers AND Radio Losing Their Audiences

Newspapers like the ProJo continue to cut staff and news pages as readers jump ship to the internet, one conclusion being that "papers around the United States have tried a lot of approaches, newsy to fluffy, parochial to international, voluminous to sparse - and all are in trouble." And now comes radio listening. Over the last decade, according to The New York Times,yu college graduates ages 25-54, who make up an increasingly large portion of the population, have abandoned radio eight times faster than non-graduates. Today, the grads listen to 15 hours and 45 minutes of radio a week, while their peers without degrees listen to 21 hours and 15 minutes weekly. Over the last ten years, the average share of listening at any given time has shrunk about 14 percent, a Times article noted.

Ideas from RI in Short Supply

Governor Deval Patrick, CEO of neighboring Massachusetts, is proposing a new form of public school that would assume unprecedented control over matters ranging from curriculum and hiring decisions to policies on school uniforms and the length of the school year, according to the Boston Globe. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., its transformational Superintendent of Schools - sometimes called the Korean lady with the free hand - is more daring. Michelle Rhee is exacting concessions such as no more teacher seniority, elimination of tenure, and outside private management of schools. Another option being explored is conversion of all D.C. schools to charter schools.

DOT Deserves its F- Grade

Seems to be obvious that our state's Department of Transportation depends on managers who can't manage, plans than aren't followed, and inspections that were done poorly or not at all, to paraphrase a ProJo news article. This all has to do with the Route 195 relocation. My conclusion: if I must get to East Providence, I'll swim.