Justin Katz
Andrew notes that marrying the future mother of his child would have put Mynor Montufar on the path to citizenship. The various considerations that go into figuring out why that was a road not taken highlight the fact that, while not all decisions follow rational thought processes, incentive structures still apply broadly. As Andrew describes…
And the people who keep digging. That’s what my latest Providence Journal piece is about. As I said the other day: We’re in a race to move the state toward change before the four groups I describe in the op-ed manage to force too many others beyond its borders.
Although I’m not in a position to provide links right now, I wanted to mention something that I just heard on WPRO: The unwed, nineteen-year-old father of Rhode Island’s first-born baby of 2008 was just taken in under suspicion of being an illegal alien. Apparently, a housemate of the young couple was found dead (perhaps…
Michael Novak counts the ways. It seems to me that he misses one category of atheists, or at least that he ought to have teased it out from the six that he lists: those who’ve made science and rationality (more correctly: rationalism) their god. He’s got good advice for believers, though: Recall that in your…
On my way to the jobsite, the other day, I stopped at CVS because it’s the only store in which I’ve found my preferred brand of pencil and, because it caught my eye in passing, I picked up a copy of the latest Rhode Island Monthly. It occurred to me, as somebody trying to keep…
Perhaps it’s grasping at straws for something on which to hang some optimism, but judging from the cross-section unity among columnists, perhaps the common wisdom in Rhode Island is rocking in the right direction. On page A2, LifeBeat columnist Mark Patinkin head-fakes a silver lining and then highlights the problems of the state in the…
Maybe we can plug the state deficit with Ethics Commission fines: The Ethics Commission voted yesterday to prosecute state senator and union official Frank Ciccone on two charges, but dropped five other charges that his votes in the General Assembly amounted to ethics violations because they benefited unions he works for. The decision means that…
Here’s how even private-sector unions “negotiate”: A carpenters union that has been shut out of a $34-million renovation project at the Hyatt Regency Newport Hotel and Spa picketed yesterday at the Goat Island causeway, accusing the hotel of improperly removing mold. Representatives of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, Local 1305, passed out leaflets…
Tiverton resident Jay Lambert makes a good point in a letter in the latest edition of the Sakonnet Times: According to Mr. Medeiros, the lack of a contract with the teachers “is actually the result of the union refusing to accept the (financial) challenges we all face.” This seems to be the view of several…
Marc offered the substantive commentary yesterday, so all I’ve got in response to bad news about Rhode Island’s high schools is a quip (emphasis added): But proficiency rates among students statewide are stagnant. Despite an aggressive statewide high school reform effort, test scores of high school juniors have remained flat for the past several years,…
