Justin Katz

Education in Context

By Justin Katz | October 4, 2007 |

Reading Thomas’s comments to my “What Profiteth a Community” post, I thought, at first, that we’d solved one area of disagreement. Consider: Isn’t there a real chicken-and-egg problem here? Justin’s right that, if we don’t have decent jobs in RI, our well-educated children will flee for greener pastures. On the other hand, what potential employers…

Facts and Figures in Tiverton

By Justin Katz | October 4, 2007 |

Sometimes I find myself shaking my head at how teachers — of all people — are willing to allow themselves to appear: Teachers changed their proposal from a three-year contract to a two-year contract, but deMedeiros said the percentage salary increases did not differ much from a previous proposal. Instead of asking for 3.75 percent…

Would We Trust Us to Instruct?

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2007 |

Disagreements would arise later in the conversation, but Mark Shea makes a point that too often (nearly always) goes unexplored: Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men. The twin girls who were also dressed for the event wore identical…

For Scheduling Purposes

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2007 |

You might be interested in some of the events on the URI College Republicans’ schedule for the semester, especially during Islamo-Facism Awareness Week later this month. I’m going to try to make it to both Donna Hughes’s lecture on “Women’s Rights and Political Islam” (October 23) and Robert Spencer’s lecture the following evening (October 24).…

Whitehouse Plays Politics with His State

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2007 |

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.…

The Other Side of the Mediation in Tiverton

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2007 |

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…

Not to Be That Guy (Yet Again), But…

By Justin Katz | October 2, 2007 |

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.…

Consider the Children’s Dreams

By Justin Katz | October 1, 2007 |

Helen Glover feels for Stephen Alves, in a way similar to this frightening guy’s feelings for Britney Spears.

The Way It’s Done

By Justin Katz | October 1, 2007 |

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…

$300,000,000 OBO

By Justin Katz | October 1, 2007 |

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…