Justin Katz
Honestly, I thought the matter was settled. Judging people and giving them preferential or detrimental treatment based on the color of their skin is wrong. Segregating people and providing opportunities to different groups based on race is bad. I don’t know how it happened, but one is apt to be called a “racist” for saying…
Imagine living in a place where the sort of policy Paula Bolyard describes on PJ Media is actually a possibility, or even a part of the public conversation: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey just fired a shot across the bow of teachers’ unions and COVID-panic advocates who insist on keeping kids out of classrooms, despite the minimal…
Months ago, Malcolm Gladwell made a pretty convincing case on his Revisionist History podcast for dogs as allies to help us avoid the most draconian anti-pandemic measures, especially in schools. It looks like some schools in Massachusetts got the message: COVID sniffing K-9s have gone through all five schools in the Freetown-Lakeville district throughout the…
As un-fun as it no doubt was, Patricia Morgan’s experience as a sudden Emmanuel Goldstein for progressives across the country was an opportunity to observe how the mania mob is whipped up. At 10:02 a.m. on December 28, she tweeted the now-infamous comment about the loss of a black friend, presumably over the promulgation of…
One of the bigger local stories in Rhode Island, right now, is the (alleged) killing of an East Greenwich teen by a long-rap-sheet thug who shared beforehand his intention to drive while intoxicated, albeit with his mind on harming himself rather than others. The story is heartbreaking on multiple fronts, but for this post, let’s…
Interestingly, this is essentially the same point I just finished being proclaimed a racist for making with regard to the racial net worth gap, and an academic journal wouldn’t let a mainstream scholar make it: I suspect the real beef the ELJ Executive Board has with the essay is that Larry explicitly stated that racism…
In a wide-ranging discussion loosely related to Internet narratives, Frank Rose and EconTalk host Russ Roberts touch on how immersive stories can draw us into activities outside their delivery — whether buying action figures, chatting with Broadway actors by the stage door, or digging into the history of non-fiction characters. As I set out to…
On various issues of public controversy recently (notably transgenderism), some conservatives have suggested that forcing the population to assent to outlandish propositions is the point. Whether changing how society thinks about a particular matter is the central goal or incidental, progressives want to train the public to accept reality as whatever the activists say it is.…
Steve Ahlquist has a strange explainer on Uprise RI about how Barrington got away with implementing a minimum wage policy for municipal workers: State law passed during the regime of House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello prevents municipalities from raising the minimum wage within their borders. But the state cannot prevent individual cities and towns from establishing their…
Criticisms of Allan Fung among Rhode Island Republicans have always struck me as either too demanding for purity or else founded in personal animosity (albeit perhaps with some justification… I don’t know). He was a solid Republican mayor and, from what I could see, a reasonably loyal member of the party. Given the GOP’s position…