Providence Superintendent Tom Brady's resignation has already ginned up all sorts of speculation over who may replace him. But if the "who" is important, so is the "what," as in what sort of philosophy can we expect - what sort of approach to teachers and education reform in a remarkably turbulent time in capital city education.

David Cicilline's tough political stretch gets the full treatment in Politico today.

So much for the honeymoon period.

Less than three months into his first term, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) has nose-dived in the polls and is under fire back home in Providence, the embattled city where he served as mayor before winning election to Congress.

OK, policy nerds. An interesting little health care kerfuffle:

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial today holding up Rhode Island's alternate approach to escalating Medicaid costs - driven by the so-called "global Medicaid waiver" it received from the Bush Administration - as a national model.

But the lefty Center of Budget and Policy Priorities has argued that the Rhode Island case is not nearly the model that conservatives claim

The pension crisis. You know it's important, but the words make your eyes glaze.

Well, I may have the story for you in today's Phoenix. It's pensions made fun. Pictures! Charts! Exclamation points! Charles Barkley makes a cameo here and Emperor Augustus, too.

There's also a piece on Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, now that she's announced that she won't stick around for Obama II.

A new, wide-ranging Brown University poll is out. Among the highlights: mixed views on Governor Chafee's sales tax proposal (lowering the rate from 7 to 6 percent, adding a 1 percent tax on some items, expanding the number of items to be taxed), poor approval ratings for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative David Cicilline, and solid support for organized labor (Wisconsin, ye seem so far away).

Amid all the debate here and across the country on education reform, the teacher's defense:

John Foreman's assertion that he will kill Michael Woodmansee, the South Kingstown man who brutally murdered his son in 1975 and is set to be released early from prison on good behavior, is fair game for the media; it is a striking, if disturbing, reminder of the severe pain that lingers years after barbaric acts.

But must we insist that he repeat the desire before microphone after microphone, as he did most recently on Good Morning America?

The Gridiron Club, that stuffy old Washington press club of which the Providence Journal is a founding member, had its annual roast of politicians and media types recently. Pretty good gag from President Obama, who spoke at the end:

By tradition, the president of the United States gets the last word at any Gridiron dinner.

I noted in this space yesterday that Congressman Jim Langevin, who has long pushed for an upgrade to the nation's porous cyber defenses, has once again introduced legislation on the subject.

The new bill would carve out a special White House office on cybersecurity and aim to bolster a weak cybersecurity workforce, among other things.

Congressman Jim Langevin, who has made cybersecurity a signature issue, is making another go at reform. From DC publication The Hill:

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) unveiled a comprehensive cybersecurity bill on Wednesday that would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to regulate the security of private networks deemed part of the nation's critical infrastructure.

Interesting editorial from our sister paper, the Boston Phoenix, this week on the disaster in Japan:

"Most people today," writes political philosopher John Gray, "think they belong to a species that can be master of its destiny. This is faith, not science."

The unfolding disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station sorely strains that faith, as did the 1979 crisis at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

As Providence Mayor Angel Taveras announces the city's designation as one of IBM's "Smarter Cities" and plans to develop a computerized land management system to help spur growth in the Jewelry District (or Knowledge District), it may be worth another look at a piece that appeared in last week's Phoenix on Brown University's Chris Bull.

Call it the triumph of good ol' Rhody provincialism.

The Rhode Island Department of Health has selected three applicants to open medical marijuana dispensaries, or "compassion centers." And among them is Seth Bock, a well-trimmed acupuncturist who plans to open a center in Portsmouth. He was featured in a story I wrote a few weeks back on marijuana going mainstream in Rhode Island

PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking enterprise that began at the St. Petersburg Times and has been franchised out to a number of news organizations across the country, has long been a target of conservatives who allege a liberal bias.

Little surprise, then, that the relatively new local version - operated by the Providence Journal - is facing a similar critique from local conservatives.

Governor Lincoln Chafee is promising comprehensive pension reform later this legislative session. It looks like he could have his work cut out for him.

Last year, the Pew Center on the States graded the states' pension system - based, in part, on the funding ratio in each state. Standard accounting practices say a pension fund should be at least 80 percent funded.