Rhode Island Man Wins Accordion World Championship

Normally I wouldn't write two Rhody posts in a row, but these are extraordinary circumstances involving alligators and accordions.

If anyone can confer sex appeal upon the stodgy old squeezebox, though, it just might be 23-year-old Rhode Island native and jazz accordion wunderkind Cory Pesaturo. Last month Pesaturo won the World Digital Accordion Championship in New Zealand, dazzling judges with his rapid-fire playing style and showmanship. It marked the first world accordion title won by an American in 25 years, earning Pesaturo, who’s been playing professionally since age 11, $1,500 in prize money and a priceless measure of coolness.

(via Boston Barstool)

Alligator wrangled near Fall River highway; R.I. blamed

The Providence Journal

FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) - A five-foot long alligator wandering near a Massachusetts highway has been wrangled safely away from the public.

Robert Schenck, owner of the Fall River pet store Animal Instincts, helped capture the small alligator Sunday after being called by animal control officers.

Schenck told WPRI-TV he went into a swampy area off Route 24 in Fall River, grabbed the gator and used electrical tape to bind its jaws shut.

Schenck said the animal likely came from Rhode Island, where it is legal to keep them as pets.

Schenck also said the alligator probably had been on the loose all summer and may have been feeding on rats or other rodents.

Google Street View is Now in Bristol, RI

Well, only the main roads for now. But I ask you: what's prettier than Colt State Park on a sunny day?


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US States As Countries of Equal Population

An interesting and colorful map. Rhode Island is represented by East Timor, which is fitting since it was a Portuguese colony.

RI Pros

O hey, it looks like prostitution is finally going to be outlawed in Rhode Island. One of the best kept secrets about my home state is that it's the only place in the US, aside from a few counties in Nevada, where prostitution is legal.

Most importantly, this new law will make it easier to prosecute the horrendous number of human trafficking crimes that occur within Rhode Island's borders.

Grim RI

Good God this article is depressing. The New York Times refers to RI as "arguably the most economically hobbled state after Michigan."

Perhaps the most disheartening part is that nobody is exactly sure why.

Education?

...Rhode Islanders are less educated than much of the country. The state has the lowest high school graduation rate in the Northeast and ranks 38th nationally.

Low pay?

Its average private-sector salary in 2007 was $39,827, compared with $55,819 in Massachusetts and $59,174 in Connecticut.

Taxes?

...a study last fall by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan group in Washington, ranked Rhode Island’s business climate the fifth-worst in the nation.

Corruption and parochialism? Remember, this is the state that recently saw a former governor, mayor of the capital city and State Supreme Court Justice all serve federal prison terms simultaneously.

“The whole political system is based on back scratching and getting things for your friends,” said Robert Whitcomb, editorial page editor of The Providence Journal. “That’s true for every place, but more so here because of the intimacy — you keep bumping into people you know.”

These are massive problems for a state that's facing a $7 billion unfunded pension liability, $357 million budget shortfall and 10% unemployment.

There is no panacea, and the next few years are going to be hard. Home prices are going to painfully reset and many of the blue collar jobs that are being lost are never going to come back.

However, The Ocean State still has a smart, energetic and creative population that will rebound from these hard times. They just need to figure out a way to keep all of those people from leaving, and to get them civically engaged.

Rhode Island Transparency

The State of Rhode Island today launched a new "Transparency Portal" to publicly disclose all spending. So far, it's a little bit tough to navigate and the individual entries don't provide as much detail as I'd like, but overall it's great to see this from a state that consistently ranks at the top of the corruption index.

Gallery Night in Providence

I enjoyed attending Gallery Night when I lived in Rhode Island, but since I've moved away I haven't been in a couple of years. If you're local I would highly suggest you check it out.

Now that I can compare Providence's Gallery Night to the one in Chelsea, I can say that my former capital city does an excellent job. The scale is obviously much smaller and the crowd in Manhattan is a bit more swanky and fervent, but Providence has an art scene to be proud of.