Halloween Edition

Only in Rhode Island could two Roto-Rooter plumbers become famous as TV ghost hunters. But Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, who head up The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), are now enjoying their fourth season stalking spirits on the Sci-Fi Channel series, "Ghost Hunters." When moonlighting they trade their plumbers' snakes and Drano for white noise generators, ion generators and thermal imaging cameras to investigate the paranormal around the country. Got ectoplasm?

Ocean State Job Not

The news gets grimmer in Rhode Island, a state that has earned a blue ribbon for black clouds. Yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released figures that ranked Rhody worst in the nation for joblessness. Unemployment reached 8.8 percent in September, the highest rate in the country. Even worse, the figures were compiled before the recent nationwide financial collapse, indicating that more bad news can be expected next month. The signs are equally gloomy locally. At the Jonnycake Center in Peace Dale, the number of families enrolled in its emergency meals program has already risen from 261 last year to 905 today, a number that is expected to grow to more than 1,000 before year’s end. And the good times keep on rolling here in Phil Gramm’s “mental recession”…

Rhody's rank

Another survey, another reason for Rhode Islanders to cringe. Recently the Yahoo! Finance section reported figures provided by Business Week ranking the states according to their budget shortfalls in tax revenue. The data, based on a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, indicates that Rhode Island has the fifth-worst budget gap in the nation by percentage. Rhody is $430 million in the hole, which represents 13.1 percent of its total budget. The report was completed long before the stock market plunge and financial bailout, factors that will continue to adversely affect federal, state and municipal budgets for months, if not years. Here’s the thumbnail critique:

Rhode Island’s economy has been weakened by its housing market, one of the worst in the nation. Lawmakers are trying to make up for a $430 million shortfall in their budget with proposed cuts to the public college system and aid for municipalities, as well as tighter limits on welfare benefits.

The only four states in worse shape than Rhode Island? California (-$22.2 billion, a budget gap of 22 percent); Arizona (-$2 billion, 19.9 percent); Florida (-$5.1 billion, 19.9 percent); and Nevada (-$1.2 billion, 16 percent).

Fall color

Two oddities about New England’s most glorious season: First, Rhode Island grows the biggest pumpkins in the world. Two years ago Ron Wallace of Greene set a world record with a 1,502-pound pumpkin. The results were made official at the Rhode Island Weigh-Off at a farm along the Kickemuit River in Warren - which means that the smallest town in the smallest county in the smallest state in the country hosted the world’s biggest gourd. Another Rhode Islander, Joe Jutras of North Scituate, shattered the record last year, weighing in with a 1,689-pound pumpkin at the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts.

And this from a national telephone survey by Plow & Hearth: Among the questions asked: ‘What is your favorite fall foliage color?’

Red and orange led in preference (36 percent each) followed by yellow (14 percent) and brown (11 percent). Those living in the Midwest are most likely to choose red or orange (38 percent each), while North-Easterners are most likely to choose orange (44 percent). Those on the West Coast are most likely to like yellow (20 percent), and Southerners have the highest propensity to like brown (16 percent).

Veteran New England foliage seekers might prefer to choose more precisely among crimson, maroon, purple, rust, russet, copper, bronze, gold, raw umber and burnt sienna. The color is already peaking in parts of South County. Red maples and bright orange poison sumac are bursting from the swamps while the white ash blush a rusty maroon along the streams and uplands. Beech and quaking aspen, oak and sugar maple, hickory and black birch, tupelo and sassafras will add to the drama as the color hangs on deep into November in Rhode Island. Look for the Norway maples to make the final bugle call of autumn with a blast of brassy yellow.

Size Cliche Police

The blog has been sluggish lately, but we'll perk up a bit this week. First up: The latest "size of Rhode Island" catch. This one appeared in a blog entry by Stanley Fish on NYTimes.com. Titled "Buttons and Bows," the posting discussed the pros and cons of recent decisions in New York and Illinois to ban teachers from wearing political buttons or putting political bumper stickers on their cars.

He writes: "It is silly (and unconstitutional) to dictate what faculty members can put on their cars, especially at a state university like Illinois where the parking lots are the size of Rhode Island and the odds of a student knowing which car belongs to which professor are next to nothing."

So no Obama. No Nobama. No lipstick and pigs. No Women for Palin. No Women against Palin. No W with or without the line through it. My old Something's Bruin in Providence sticker is still good, though.

A fan's note

Some good fortune, some classic baseball and the Red Sox are moving on. Even Sox fans have to feel a pang of sympathy for the Los Angeles By Way of Orange County Southern California Angels of Anaheim, who defeated Boston eight out of nine times in the regular season but have lost 12 of the last 13 playoff games to the Carmine Hose. Ouch.

That point wasn’t lost on a Rhody member of Red Sox Nation living out in the Los Angeles By Way of Orange County Southern California Area of Anaheim. The following appears in a note from Jerry Crowe’s column in the Los Angeles By Way of Orange County Southern California Times of Anaheim:

Before Sunday night’s 12-inning marathon, it had been so long since the Angels defeated the Red Sox in a playoff game, reader Jerry Sondler of Warwick, R.I. notes, “Elena Sharapova was in her first trimester carrying daughter Maria.”

Cosmic Rhody

Digging deep into the online archives to discover an unusual size of Rhode Island reference. In a 2003 article about the construction of a cosmic ray detector in Argentina, the author uses a timeworn unit of measurement to prove once again that Rhode Island is the Universe.

Scientific theory can account for the sources of low- and medium-energy cosmic rays, but the origin of these rare high-energy cosmic rays remains a mystery. To identify the cosmic mechanisms that produce microscopic particles at macroscopic energy, the Pierre Auger collaboration is installing an array that will ultimately comprise 1,600 surface detectors in an area of the Argentine Pampa Amarilla the size of Rhode Island...

Located about 600 miles west of Buenos Aires, the first detectors are already working their soon-to-be Rhode Island-sized magic. Said Nobel Prize winner Jim Cronin of the University of Chicago: "These highest-energy cosmic rays are messengers from the extreme universe. They represent a great opportunity for discoveries."

Our interstellar readers will soon find out what Earthlings already know: Universes don't come more extreme than Rhode Island. It's such a given that we don't even bother to put "Discover Rhode Island" on our license plates anymore.