Ripple
Consider this tweet from WPRI’s Ted Nesi as an indication of the dehumanizing aspect of the fashionable “community” phrase: This politically correct practice allows 80 people to stand in for a “community” of nearly 20,000 people. It’s careless identity politics, and it’s ideologically corrupt. How do 80 people get to speak for 20,000? Does Ted…
If “genocide” on the other side of the world justifies defacing statues, vandalizing buildings, and shouting down speakers, it will justify violence.
While I’m catching up on noteworthy items I’ve had on my to-do list, I have to point out that General Treasurer James Diossa’s grandstanding talk about “evaluat[ing] the banking relationship and the state’s business with Washington Trust Company” ought to be disqualifying for him to continue holding his position. I’ve offered my opinion on the…
This tweet from Democrat Attorney General Peter Neronha is a little old, but I didn’t want to let it pass without comment in this space: The people who own property in the state have rights, too. Many, probably most, of them are “people of this great state.” The AG has to enforce the laws as…
I believe in humanity’s ability to adapt and recover, but it typically comes at the expense of a lot of waste and pain. I’m increasingly worried that we’ve cheated younger generations of the ability to think. Not only are schools failing to teach it, but our emphasis on schooling has drawn many children and young…
When you chant “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea,” what those within Israel or externally supportive of the country hear is similar to what you would hear if a large group of conservatives marched in the street chanting: “White people will be free, from Bar Harbor to San D.” You would…
Step 1: Construct a simplistic narrative with obvious good guys and bad guys and a conclusion with which nobody reasonable could disagree. Step 2: Ensure that the “bad guys” can’t actually harm the people protesting. Step 3: Provide singsong, rhythmic slogans that sound innocuous, but that the intended opposition will understand as threatening. Step 4:…
Hamas executed a brutal sneak attack with no declaration of war against innocent people in their homes and at a music festival. The big complaint against Israel’s response, recently, has been that one day was not enough warning for people to evacuate an area they were planning to attack after a declaration of war. Which…
Dan McGowan notes that new standardized test scores are out for Rhode Island public schools, and they’re not good. Elsewhere, he finds a silver lining in the fact that English-language learners do better at English and are nearly caught up in math, but it seems like an indication of how poorly the schools are doing…
Nonetheless, it’s worth noting this mild corrective from Brown University’s Dr. Ashish Jha on Newsmakers, as summarized in a recent “Nesi’s Notes” column: “I think we all in public health could have done a better job of communicating with more humility about what we knew and didn’t know. There was a desire by some people to…