Side of the Rhode: Who's Hot and Who's Not?
Russell J. Moore, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™
Side of the Rhode: Who's Hot and Who's Not?
From storm response kudos to tipped ships, from medical pioneers to employment numbers, plus a local viral video that's taking the nation by storm that GoLocalProv brought you first...find out "Who's Hot and Who's Not" this week in the slideshow below!
Side of the Rhode: Who's Hot and Who's Not - January 30, 2015
HOT
Matt Glendinning
The Head of Moses Brown School cancelled school in the most awesome way possible this week when he created a cool video and sang his own version of Disney’s “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen, but instead called it “School is Closed”. He received national accolades for his creativity and sense of humor during what was a very aggravating day for the state. This video had a humble 215 views on YouTube before GoLocalProv broke the story and it went national. There are now over a million and a quarter views as the nation embraced the school's creativity.
HOT
Northeast Governors
The Governors from the northeast states impacted by the storm, including Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, Andrew Cuomo in New York, Dannel Malloy in Connecticut, Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire (who kept the state’s “live free or die” motto alive by electing to not impose a travel ban) and yes, Gina Raimondo here in Rhode Island, all have received glowing reviews of their handling of the storm. They were undoubtedly aided by the fact that the storm’s accumulations were amassed during nighttime hours (as opposed to the rush hour commute), but their strong leadership certainly played a big role in the quick cleanup.
HOT
Lincoln Chafee
As evidenced by his portrait, the former Governor had a very rocky tenure as the state’s chief executive. But let’s be fair: unlike his predecessor, Governor Don Carcieri, the former Governor handled snowstorms relatively well and never had any major hiccups directing the snow cleanups.
HOT
The Memory of Dr. Stanley Aronson
The founding Dean of Medicine at Brown University passed away this week at the age of 92. Dr. Stanley Aronson was a pioneer of family medicine in America, and worked tirelessly to improve medical care in Rhode Island. His legacy will live on through the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University that he helped create.
HOT
Joanne Giannini
Giannini is no longer a State Representative, but that hasn’t stopped her from working to end the disgusting practice of human trafficking, as evidenced by her column in GoLocalProv this week. It’s nice to see Giannini is still working to bring awareness to the problem after having done so much to combat it as a legislator.
HOT
New England Patriots
“Deflategate” has turned out to be much ado about nothing as scientific experiments have shown the lower PSI in a football would make it about 1 millimeter smaller and reduces the weight by that of a dollar bill. As Rhode Island resident Taylor Swift has pointed out “haters gonna hate”. Super Bowl Prediction: Patriots 27 Seahawks 20.
NOT
Governor Gina Raimondo
The Governor sure talked a great game about pay equity for women during her gubernatorial campaign. So why is her staff top heavy with highly paid men who make more than their female counterparts? GoLocalProv broke the story late last week.
NOT
National Weather Service
It wasn’t a good week for the National Weather Service, which bungled the forecast and predicted more snow for areas that got less like New York City, and predicted lesser totals for areas that got more, like Western Massachusetts. Journalists, who are held to extremely high standards for accurate reporting, can only wish they had the same margin for error as weather forecasters.
NOT
6.8%
OK, Gina Raimondo can handle a snowstorm; but Raimondo ran for office based on her capacity to drive economic growth, no clear away snow. With the news that Rhode Island has the 4th highest unemployment rate in the country, at an unacceptable 6.8 percent, she’s got her work to cut out for her.
NOT
Providence Plowing
The city of Providence doesn’t have enough equipment to handle the plowing operations in the city when compared to other cities. GoLocalProv broke the story this week- The city of Worcester has just less than double the land mass of Providence, but 4 times the amount of equipment, while Cranston has less landmass but more plowing equipment. Given those facts, it was no surprise that the roads in Providence were still a mess more than a day after the storm had ended.
NOT
RI-ACLU
The Governor threatened to arrest anyone who left their home from late Monday night until Tuesday night at 8 pm, a serious threat to civil liberties. Yet, if you were waiting to hear the ACLU to speak out against this, all you would hear is the cold, howling wind blowing the snow around.
NOT
Tall Ship
The replica of the USS Providence was a victim of the blizzard last week as it toppled over during the storm. Here’s hoping the ship didn’t withstand too much damage and can be restored to its former splendor and greatness.
