Quick Read
Governor Dan McKee implemented an inflexible COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Rhode Island’s healthcare workers in the midst of a healthcare worker shortage. How much did the mandate exacerbate under-staffing? Director of Health Dr. Nicole Alexander Scott was asked this at a press conference on November 16. “It’s a contributing factor that is small in the…
Even as long ago as the late ’90s, when I finished up my undergraduate studies, the seeds of cancel culture were visible. Contrarian that I am, I would often challenge professors’ and other students’ arguments in classes that fostered debate, and some disputants were clearly looking for excuses to invalidate my case out of hand. …
Handling kids’ devices has become one of the most difficult challenges for parents, and the COVID lockdowns made it nearly impossible. This isn’t just restricting the amount of time a kid sits in front of a television watching shows. Modern devices are tools of social connection and legitimate information collection. Add in the need to…
Well… it’s not just COVID, obviously. People have gone crazy on a bunch of issues, but with COVID, as a topic, data is involved, which really ought to make it easier to pull everybody into productive discussion. Unfortunately, it’s not often working out that way (at least among those I encounter). The latest example to…
A while back, I saw a short article about an incident in which the Providence police saved a woman from suicide. Police went to the scene at 9:26 a.m. Some officers tried to calm her down and coax her off the ledge, Verdi said. But at one point the woman became despondent and a crisis negotiator thought…
Republican state representative from West Warwick Patricia Morgan has gone viral with the following tweet: I had a black friend. I liked her and I think she liked me, too. But now she is hostile and unpleasant. I am sure I didn’t do anything to her, except be white. Is that what teachers and our…
The Cato Institute’s Freedom in the 50 States index has Rhode Island slipping to 41st most free (i.e., 10th least free) for 2021, with the following ranks in its three major subcategories: Fiscal, #27 Personal, #33 Regulatory, #43 Keep in mind, of course, that this is freedom as defined by the libertarian Cato Institute, and…
On October 1, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee ordered the enforcement of a vaccine mandate on Rhode Island healthcare workers. Governor McKee’s vaccine mandate would almost certainly sideline healthcare workers (who did not get vaccinated), though the number would not be knowable at the planning stage. And there would be a corresponding impact on public…
At different times in my life, I’ve found my ability to focus on brainwork hindered by various things. Sometimes, it’s been videogames. Sometimes, binge-watching television shows. Sometimes, social media. Even simplistic games like solitaire, mahjong, 2048, or sudoku. Recently, my chief distraction has been contemplating the construction of reality, especially around the point at which…
The strangest thing that’s ever happened to me as a Eucharistic minister, distributing communion at Catholic Mass, was the time shortly after I’d started doing it that an elderly man threw coins in the ciborium* with his right hand as I placed the Eucharist in his left. I didn’t know how to react or what…
