Quick Read

A college class

Documents about waking to wokeness will one day be studied.

By Justin Katz | January 20, 2022 |

One day, somebody will publish a thick collection of documents written by those who have been awakening to, and warning about, wokeness.  Jordan Peterson’s open letter explaining his resignation as a tenured professor will be among its pages (if anybody can afford the rights!).  Some will scoff at Peterson, but this document is the most…

Boy in a library

Anybody who wants to help disadvantaged minorities should support this.

By Justin Katz | January 19, 2022 |

You can’t help but be moved by stories like this.  Similarly, you can’t miss the political reasons they aren’t more widely spread. [Denisha] Merriweather’s future looked bleak. “Teachers would sigh when I walked through the door,” she said of the district schools she attended. “Another Merriweather,” they would judge. “My family name was not that…

An essential worker sign

It’s starting to feel like we’re being bought off.

By Justin Katz | January 19, 2022 |

I’ll be honest.  Facing a massive imminent bill for a prematurely failed septic system while I’m in the midst of a career adjustment and at a high-water mark for higher-education expenses spanning generations, news about a state-administered federal program to hand out up to $50,000 to homeowners initially felt like an opportunity: The newly opened…

A Nipyata

Do we want to be defined by nanny-state bans?

By Justin Katz | January 19, 2022 |

Democrat state representative from Warwick David Bennett continues his long streak of bad legislation with an effort to ban nips — those little bottles of alcohol that have been a fixture of liquor stores for decades: Rep. David Bennett, D-Warwick, is tired of spotting discarded nips strewn along the side of the road whenever he…

Sign reading "You'll Get It Eventually"

McCardle is wrong to saddle the Somewheres with election concerns.

By Justin Katz | January 18, 2022 |

Libertarian columnist for the Washington Post Megan McCardle appeared on Russ Roberts’s EconTalk podcast to talk about the late Roger Scruton’s contrast of the Somewheres, whose worldview is deeply tied to a sense of belonging somewhere, and the Anywheres, who (if I may attempt to summarize their desire charitably) want to feel at home wherever they may go. …

Biden & Fauci comply posters

Rhode Island Democrats, is this you?

By Justin Katz | January 18, 2022 |

As expected as it probably should be, I have to say I’m still a bit surprised by these survey findings: – Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters would oppose a proposal for federal or state governments to fine Americans who choose not to get a COVID-19 vaccine. However, 55% of Democratic voters would support such a…

Scene from Fun Home musical

Did a Pawtucket parent finally find education insiders’ sense of shame?

By Justin Katz | January 18, 2022 |

These days, it’s surprising to see an article, by Abigail Judson in the Valley Breeze, that doesn’t make Pawtucket father Brendon Hall out to be a suspicious villain for objecting to inappropriate material in his daughter’s freshman classroom.  The graphic novel at the center of the controversy (now a Broadway musical!) is Fun Home, which features…

A conceptual model of the multiverse

I decided I had to start from the very beginning.

By Justin Katz | January 17, 2022 |

With the firm disclaimer that such material is not for everybody, I’ve been intending to write philosophical or religious essays regularly on Dust in the Light.  Time has a way of slipping past, however. At an accelerating pace in the months since the last-published post on the site, concepts have started to click into place…

Martin Luther King, Jr., Statue

MLK Day is becoming unitive in an unexpected way.

By Justin Katz | January 17, 2022 |

In the pantheon of American holidays, the day set aside for remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr., has always fallen into that category of events that feel as if they’re on the calendar mainly as a reminder.  Before MLK Day was initiated, the named holidays for two American presidents, Washington and Lincoln, had the same…

Dominoes

Trends toward nationalization of everything and corrupt elections were entirely predictable.

By Justin Katz | January 15, 2022 |

Two ingredients for a crucial point producing deeper understanding are present in a RealClear Politics commentary by Phill Kline, but he doesn’t quite draw them together. The first set of ingredients consists of seven items his organization, the Amistad Project, has found through litigation related to the 2020 election.  Basically, they are the familiar points…