Justin Katz
Whenever I read about arrangements such as Paul Edward Parker describes at the end of his Projo piece about state worker overtime, I wonder how polluted the public budget is with similar tricks and instances of advantage-taking: One area that [Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals Director Ellen R. Nelson] hopes to address is…
PROEM: First published in the August 17 edition of the Providence Journal. It’s a suspicious thing for a legislature’s press release to use the word “unscrupulous.” “Unscrupulous” is a word for activists and marketers. When a representative body uses it to describe some of its constituents — in this case, building contractors — one suspects…
Although programming problems (as I’ve been given to understand) have kept it in print-only limbo, I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Providence Journal about the ways in which, under the headline of protecting the “consumer” from “unscrupulous” free agents (including construction contractors), government generally (and the General Assembly in particular) creates a regulatory regime that…
One tires of the bad-faith rhetoric of modern feminists, social libertines, and vitriolic do-gooders: “We know there are some people out there who long for a return to the ‘idyllic’ 1950s when women knew their place was in the kitchen,” the groups wrote, “but we do not expect to hear echoes of it emanating from…
On the radio with the man himself, Ron St. Pierre just announced that Buddy Cianci will be joining WPRO. They didn’t mention whom he’ll be replacing, though; I imagine they’re leaving it to the host to tell his own audience. It may or may not be related, but I caught Dan Yorke making an odd…
From time to time throughout my life, I’ve been asked whether I was from another country. As far as I can recall, the question has always been posed by females, so I’ve generally taken it as an intended compliment — some variation of “So are you exotic as well as dashingly handsome?” (On the other…
This represents less of a movement than the Jackass movies — albeit mildly less adolescent and significantly less influential — but it is somewhat emblematic of a certain way of thinking: As noted by Bobbie Johnson’s Guardian-related blog, some blogger in California (I think) has taken it upon himself to recategorize books that stores have…
It would seem that our discussion of civil rights and E-ZPass toll booths was not far fetched: Generally mounted inside a vehicle’s windshield behind the rearview mirror, E-ZPass devices communicate with antennas at toll plazas, automatically deducting money from the motorist’s prepaid account. Of the 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest that are part…
In the comments to the previous post, Tom W provides a link to his Narragansett Times debate with Bob Walsh, which is still available on RI Policy Analysis as a PDF.
Following up on my (probably poorly stated) previous post, a specific instance of the conversation’s various subthreads is illustrative, beginning with the following, from Thomas: The average teacher salary in RI for 04-05 was $53,473 (I know Frank will say it’s higher, but I don’t think he’s given us figures and a source yet, so…