Justin Katz

Separation of Advocacy and State

By Justin Katz | July 30, 2008 |

Tiverton’s public hearing on charter-related questions potentially to be placed on the next ballot didn’t let out until after 11:00, Monday night, although many in the audience (including the Providence Journal’s Gina Macris) left after the headline-grabbing debate over the future of the financial town meeting had ended. I stayed so late — despite dying…

Trash Day Rant Redux

By Justin Katz | July 29, 2008 |

Given past experience with the vulnerability of our trash receptacles on garbage day, we should have known better. We shouldn’t have run out of garbage bags. The children shouldn’t have filled an unlined can. My wife shouldn’t have put that can out on the street to be emptied into the truck. But it seems to…

Trying Out a Public Hearing

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2008 |

With continuing interest in a visible rift in Tiverton politics, I’m at the public hearing at the high school at which the town council will decide which suggested change to the town financial meeting will appear on the next ballot. The current discussion is whether the town council has the authority to take the charter…

Spinning Off Pieces of the Surge

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2008 |

Statements such as this suggest that Obama (probably among many Democrats and some Republicans) either doesn’t think comprehensively when it comes to strategy or is anxious to diminish America’s importance as an agent for change: … the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” contended that the decline was brought about not…

Blogging into Office

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2008 |

I just noticed that Jonathan Pincince has translated his experience with the Rhode Island Law Journal blog to his campaign for school committee in South Kingstown. As an intellectual matter, I’m not sure I buy his reasoning for running as an Independent, but from what I’ve read of his over the past couple of years,…

Fair Is Fair

By Justin Katz | July 27, 2008 |

Wholly with the intention of making light of an increasingly threatening strain in the opposition’s demeanor, I offer the following for your chuckling amusement. The sad thing is that the picture isn’t doctored. The redeeming thing is that it’s thirteen years old. (Fortunately, the hairstyle simply wasn’t possible in Rhode Island’s Ocean State atmosphere.) (The…

Friday Night on Sunday

By Justin Katz | July 27, 2008 |

I’ve been remiss in not noting that readers who missed Andrew’s appearance on Matt Allen’s Violent Round Table can download the hour here.

Checking in on Jobs

By Justin Katz | July 27, 2008 |

Just wanted to note my observation that the Providence Journal Sunday help-wanted section is now up to two-and-a-half pages. Gone are the days when the job seeker would be dizzy after scanning column upon column of inapplicable jobs.

The New Refrain That We’ve Heard So Many Times

By Justin Katz | July 27, 2008 |

Conservatives don’t seem to be “attacking” Obama so much as expressing a lack of surprise at his hollow recitation of trigger phrases. Consider the ending to a piece by Andrew Ferguson: To pump a little vigor into his limp sentiments, Obama attached them to a hypnotic refrain. “This is the moment,” he said in Berlin,…

Lessons to Be Drawn

By Justin Katz | July 26, 2008 |

In response to Mary Eberstadt’s thought-provoking piece about the accurate prognostications of Humanae Vitae, Todd Zywicki notes (and Glenn Reynolds seconds) the possibility of a cost-benefit analysis with respect to the sexual revolution. It’s difficult to draw a boundary around the topic; to put it in the form of a question that I posed a…