Justin Katz

The Price of Public Service Goes Up

By Justin Katz | December 17, 2007 |

Newport Superior Court Judge Vincent Ragosta has rebuffed the Tiverton School Committee’s attempt to “block the teachers’ union from picketing on Monday [this afternoon] at the workplace of the committee chairwoman, St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River.” Anybody considering elected office in Tiverton with the intention of upholding citizens’ interests against the unions — or…

The Pitchman Cares More About the Sale than the Benefit

By Justin Katz | December 16, 2007 |

Speaking of the solutions that politicians dubiously “favor,” I note that Rhode Island’s blue-blooded, old-money Senator Sheldon Whitehouse would support climate-related legislation even if the “average American household” suffers in both the short and long terms: Landmark legislation to combat global warming will also be a long-term boon to the U.S. economy, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse…

Plans to Plan to Favor

By Justin Katz | December 16, 2007 |

Charles Bakst has been peddling his curmudgeonly wares ’round these parts for much longer than I have, but at the risk of later being proven wrong, it seems to me that he’s either not very observant or is in on the game: The governor expressed the fear that legislators will backtrack on tax changes in…

Anti-Americanism, Anti-Humanism, Make-’em-all-like-me-ism?

By Justin Katz | December 16, 2007 |

Today’s surprising factoid comes from Mark Steyn, after a few paragraphs on the voluntary depopulation movement: Lest you think the above are “extremists,” consider how deeply invested the “mainstream” is in a total fiction. At the recent climate jamboree in Bali, the Reverend Al Gore told the assembled faithful: “My own country the United States…

(In Some Ways) The City Is the State

By Justin Katz | December 14, 2007 |

To provide some perspective on yesterday’s stark warning of calamity, it’s worth mentioning that I made it home to Tiverton from Newport in not much more time than usual — about an hour, with three short stops (coffee, money, and newspaper). In other words, Will Ricci’s nine-hour trip from East Providence to South Kingstown and…

When Town Executives Are Let Go

By Justin Katz | December 14, 2007 |

An editorial in yesterday’s Newport Daily News makes an excellent point with reference to recent departures of town administrators: … the lack of information about why the (Middletown and Tiverton) administrators are departing — whether because of poor performance, personality conflicts or political pressure — is frustrating, as is the fact that neither agreement has…

This State Is in Major Trouble

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2007 |

I just saw a report on channel 10 that there are still — at 9:00 p.m. — children on buses from schools that let out at 12:30 or 1:00. People abandoning their cars because of traffic generated during a modestly heavy snow storm? This state is embarrassing. Heads ought to roll in government offices tomorrow…

Teachers Shouldn’t Be Bullies

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2007 |

This is a plea to the teachers of Tiverton: Please step back for a moment and consider the depths to which your union is bringing you: Tiverton teachers plan to picket the workplace of School Committee Chairwoman Denise deMedeiros on Monday afternoon and have notified the president of St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Mass.,…

Not That Kind of Revolution

By Justin Katz | December 12, 2007 |

Andrew and I are at the Ocean State Policy Research Institute dinner with Grover Norquist at the Cuban Revolution in Providence, and as you can see, the atmosphere is full of thematic incongruities: ADDENDUM: All throughout dinner, something in Fidel’s eyes distracted me. As everybody filtered out of the room, I walked over for a…

Facilities During Improvement

By Justin Katz | December 11, 2007 |

The school committee is looking for a temporary classroom because a school that’s being phased out as new construction completes after this year is substandard. The idea is, as soon as possible, to spread the children out in (and out of) a building that is too small to accommodate them, for health and noise reasons.…