Justin Katz
Once upon a time, the common wisdom was that government work couldn’t compete with the private sector for pay but made up for it in benefits and job security. Whether that was ever true, I don’t know, but it has long been the case that government workers in Rhode Island get the best of all…
John DePetro and Justin Katz find evidence of the missing ingredient in RI politics everywhere.
Or rather, he would be if anybody were reporting on the story. As Republican state representative Brian Newberry noted a week ago on Twitter, Jordan Goyette’s story is not one that anybody in Rhode Island’s mainstream is keen to cover: If you picture the news media as a filtering machine, Goyette falls easily through one…
John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss the dislodged line between politics and administration in Rhode Island government.
Somewhere or other in my social media flow, I recently came across the outrage of a moment, wherein a director of communications for a school district jumped in to halt a Dr. Seuss reading that had prompted discussion of America’s racial past: The assistant director of communications for Olentangy Local School District abruptly stopped the…
Nobody should be surprised by news that Roomba vacuums caught images of users in (umm) compromising positions and then the Venezuelan workers who review the images for product development posted them in an online forum. This is a major reason that, even as an “early adopter” type of guy, I’m reluctant to move onto the…
Perhaps my favorite moment in all of music ever comes in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The music is a bouncy march, and in the libretto, the singers are proclaiming an intent to take paradise by storm, like “a victor.” The mood changes suddenly, however, and I’ve always thought it a deliberate statement…
John DePetro and Justin Katz pick apart the false image the establishment presents of the Ocean State.
This incident occurred the week before Christmas, but I still can’t believe it’s real: A charity volunteer has been arrested and charged on four counts after she told the police she “might” be praying silently, when questioned as to why she was standing on a public street near an abortion facility. Police approached Isabel Vaughan-Spruce…
John DePetro and Justin Katz consider the year ahead for Rhode Island.