Justin Katz
The case of the contaminated soil a Tiverton neighborhood just down the hill from me is beginning to exemplify everything that is wrong with our current mix of government ubiquity and the cultural knee-jerk reaction to litigate: Fiscal woes notwithstanding, the DEM went into the red in the fiscal year that ended in June to…
The New York Times smells self interest in industries’ recent support for federal regulations. A variety of factors are in play, but one quoted source for the story voices the overall gut reaction of public advocates: “I am worried about industry lobbyists bearing gifts,” said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest…
Julia Steiny’s column yesterday on Rhode Island’s poor treatment of its school principals is worth a read: In Massachusetts, principals can hire new faculty and make many of their own decisions. The Massachusetts 1993 Education Reform Act shifted much authority to the principals, with the understanding that they would delegate and share that authority with…
The last item slipped onto the Sunday Providence Journal’s front page above the fold is the most inexplicable. Taken from the Washington Post, about atheists in England, the relevance of the article’s placement seems mainly to be that it allows the Projo to burnish its image among Rhode Island fellow travelers who accuse the paper…
Mark Steyn solves the problem of our lack of general consensus about what to shout at speakers who deserve remonstration: This year I marked the anniversary of September 11th by driving through Massachusetts. It wasn’t exactly planned that way, just the way things panned out. So, heading toward Boston, I tuned to Bay State radio…
There’s something sinister about the timing of the Providence Journal’s five-part series about Corporal Patrick Murray. A production this large was most definitely a long time in the making, but issuing part one this week makes it resonate as a response to General Petraeus, and its execution reinforces the impression. Murray certainly deserves to have…
In a piece that was apparently written yesterday, the Providence Journal’s Bruce Landis explains that Lincoln Chafee didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left him: Lincoln D. Chafee, who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November’s election, said yesterday that he has left the party. Chafee said…
Bob Kerr somehow got his hands on a copy of Rescuing Providence blogger (and regular AR commenter) Michael Morse’s forthcoming book of that name, and he really thinks you should read it: Morse has been an emergency medical technician (EMT) and firefighter in Providence for 16 years. He is one of those people, like most…
That question usually implies that the good times have disappeared, but if by “good times” one means “strong economic growth,” Greg Kaza would argue that the good times have gone to the Red states: Political pundits identify 18 bona-fide Blue states, which backed Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, and 29…
Rhode Island Kids Count’s Jill Beckwith is correct that Rhode Island is “heading in the wrong direction” when it comes to healthcare.