Justin Katz
The Providence Journal editorial board is dead on in its criticism of Sheldon Whitehouse for furthering delays of judicial appointments in Rhode Island: Two important local federal judgeships on the U.S. District Court in Providence and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (a seat long held by a Rhode Islander) have gone unfilled for 10 months.…
Tiverton School Committee Vice Chairman Michael Burk offers the following response to some late night positioning from the NEA’s spinner for Tiverton: Yes, the School Committee did decide to go to arbitration — which by state law is not binding for financial issues but is binding on non-financial issues (most of the non-financials were settled…
I certainly don’t want to raise opposition to men battling cancer, but I’m a little confused, and not entirely assuaged by this: Providence Firefighters James Petersen Jr. and Jay Briddy have colon cancer, and Lt. Steven Schora has lymphoma. All three are out injured — Petersen since 2005, Briddy since 2004 and Schora since 1997.…
Helen Glover feels for Stephen Alves, in a way similar to this frightening guy’s feelings for Britney Spears.
This definitely has a very Rhode Island ring to it: When a family-owned Pennsylvania trucking company announced plans early this year to build a New England distribution center in Johnston and create 120 well-paying jobs, Governor Carcieri and Mayor Joseph M. Polisena hailed it as an economic triumph. But when tax-incentive legislation to help lure…
Mark Patinkin’s hypothetical auction summary for Rhode Island (as in auctioning off the state) had me laughing out loud yesterday: Founded 371 years ago by a difficult cast of characters expelled from neighboring states, it was the first of 13 colonies to renounce the crown. It later became the last to ratify the Constitution. This…
No doubt there are some who’ve shoved this story in their “Bush’s eyes off the terrorist ball” file folders, but I see it as further evidence that the end game cannot be otherwise than a transformation of the entire region: A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan military uniform detonated his concealed explosive vest near a…
I hate to say it, but I’ll be looking for Garry Kasparov to have a horrible chess accident during the next few months: The former world chess champion Garry Kasparov entered Russia’s presidential race on Sunday, elected overwhelmingly as the candidate for the country’s beleagured opposition coalition. Kasparov has been a driving force behind the…
I thought of A. Douglas, from Providence, today: This past summer has been the bloodiest summer of the war for U.S. soldiers; Iraqi deaths from sectarian violence have doubled this year; and there is no political progress in Iraq. This is not a policy that deserves more time. It is way beyond the time to…
Ed Kinane must be so proud: Iran’s parliament voted Saturday to designate the CIA and the U.S. Army as “terrorist organizations,” a largely symbolic response to a U.S. Senate resolution seeking a similar designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The parliament said the Army and the CIA were terrorists because of the atomic bombing of Japan;…
