Marc Comtois
Michael Barone writes, “Many of the sneering comments about the participants in last week’s hundreds of tea parties across the nation were premised on the idea that these people didn’t know much about public policy.” (Sounds familiar). However, as Barone mentions, a Pew Research poll conducted at the end of March (you can take the…
We’ve been remarking on the seemingly unconscionable inability of our General Assembly to close the indoor prostitution loophole (here, here, here) for a while now. The ProJo has editorialized about it and offered a fine investigative piece about it. As I wrote in 2007, “Rep. Joanne M. Giannini…has done yeoman’s work in presenting a comprehensive…
According to Forbes (h/t Buddy Cianci), the Providence metro area (Providence-Fall River-Warwick, R.I.-Mass., metro area) is the toughest for people to get by in. There are few smiles among those who live in Providence, R.I., these days. In February, the metro area reported an 11.6% unemployment rate, one of the highest in the country. Construction–one…
The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl makes an observation and then wonders… New American presidents typically begin by behaving as if most of the world’s problems are the fault of their predecessors — and Barack Obama has been no exception. In his first three months he has quickly taken steps to correct the errors in George…
The decision by Education Secretary Arne Duncan to freeze the admission of students to Washington, D.C.’s voucher program is cause for concern, as editorialized last week by the Washington Post. It’s clear, though, from how the destruction of the program is being orchestrated, that issues such as parents’ needs, student performance and program effectiveness don’t…
Jay Greene writes about the unions declaring war on charter schools (h/t Assigned Reading), but in the midst of his piece is some interesting data. One of the big (usually union) arguments against charter school performance is that those who apply are highly-motivated, self-selected students (or parents) and that, of course, they perform better. Greene…
From the Providence Business News: From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., a group of activists plan to greet tax filers at the Corliss Street post office to protest the cost of the war in Iraq and the defense budget. The groups that will be represented include the American Friends Service Committee, Ocean State Action, Declaration…
They editorialized, they polled and now they’ve been seconded by the faculty: Brown University will no longer celebrate Columbus Day. Why? From an earlier editorial at the Brown Daily Herald: Anyone who has studied history, especially at a mostly liberal institution like Brown, knows that Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas. Not only are…
First, to update the ongoing pirate story, it appears the Captain, Richard Phillips of Vermont, is still being held (it sounds like on a lifeboat). Additionally, I remembered reading about a maritime school training its cadets in anti-piracy tactics a week or so ago. Turns out, it was Massachusetts Maritime…and the instructor of the course?…
So Somali pirates decided to take a U.S. flagged ship. Except they apparently didn’t realize that U.S.-flagged ships have something other ships don’t–U.S. Merchant Mariners (including a couple from nearby Mass. Maritime Academy). So, while other countries bargain and dicker with pirates, this U.S. crew took matters into their own hands: The crew of a…