Quick Read
The Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council (RIPEC) notes that Rhode Island’s downward slide on the Tax Foundation Business Tax Climate Index continues, with the Ocean State exiting the 30-something range on the bad side for the first time since 2017, at 40. The only saving graces are that Connecticut has been stuck at 47 forever…
A friend recently told me about a Massachusetts school that is explicitly leveraging peer pressure to influence families’ medical decisions related to COVID. The initiative seems to encourage a form of bullying that is unhealthy for both the students applying and the students receiving the pressure, and it reminded me of past initiatives that gave…
Rhode Island teachers have been posting their attendance records on social media, today. Providence high school social studies and journalism teacher Dale Fraza listed his period 3 attendance as: Present: 4 Absent: 4 Quarantined: 9 This madness made me think that some academic with enhanced access to public school information should do a study of…
John DePetro has spotted a curious requirement for a job at Hope Academy charter school in Providence, which he redubs “Woke Academy”: They currently have a job posting (listed below) for a teachers assistant that is woke and steeped in Critical Race Theory. It starts with the ability to be aware of ” microaggressions and…
Yesterday, I got a glimpse of how the other half perceives COVID. A Rhode Island progressive shared a tweet storm by some software guy (not a blue check) collecting every study that could be cited with ominous overtones about the supposed long-term effects of the virus. It was the worst kind of analysis. Each of…
For the second year running, United Van Lines’ study of its customers finds Rhode Island to be have more people moving in than moving out. In fact, percentagewise, Rhode Island was the tenth-most-inbound state. What’s going on? Has the Ocean State somehow become a population draw? This particular data isn’t well enough defined to get…
Honestly, I thought the matter was settled. Judging people and giving them preferential or detrimental treatment based on the color of their skin is wrong. Segregating people and providing opportunities to different groups based on race is bad. I don’t know how it happened, but one is apt to be called a “racist” for saying…
As un-fun as it no doubt was, Patricia Morgan’s experience as a sudden Emmanuel Goldstein for progressives across the country was an opportunity to observe how the mania mob is whipped up. At 10:02 a.m. on December 28, she tweeted the now-infamous comment about the loss of a black friend, presumably over the promulgation of…
One of the bigger local stories in Rhode Island, right now, is the (alleged) killing of an East Greenwich teen by a long-rap-sheet thug who shared beforehand his intention to drive while intoxicated, albeit with his mind on harming himself rather than others. The story is heartbreaking on multiple fronts, but for this post, let’s…
In a wide-ranging discussion loosely related to Internet narratives, Frank Rose and EconTalk host Russ Roberts touch on how immersive stories can draw us into activities outside their delivery — whether buying action figures, chatting with Broadway actors by the stage door, or digging into the history of non-fiction characters. As I set out to…
