Culture

Old map of RI

Today marks the 369th anniversary of RI’s first-in-the-colonies ban on slavery.

By Justin Katz | May 18, 2021 |

Ken Abrams provides the language of the law on What’s Up Newport: Whereas, it is a common course practiced amongst English men to buy negroes, to that end they have them for service or slave forever: let it be ordered, no blacke mankind or white being forced by covenant bond, or otherwise, to serve any man…

URI Professor Donna Hughes

Donna Hughes’s advocacy against “sex work” and trafficking comes not from prudery, but experience.

By Justin Katz | May 18, 2021 |

Professor Hughes, of the University of Rhode Island, has worked with many women who have been harmed by the “industry,” which she has found to be irredeemably exploitative. That point comes through clearly in her appearance on Jay Nordlinger’s Q&A podcast. The episode is worth a listen, particularly for libertarians and progressives who don’t understand what anybody…

Mother touching baby's hand

If your life can be upended for saying “men cannot get pregnant,” they can enforce any religious dogma at all.

By Justin Katz | May 18, 2021 |

We’ve been seeing more and more stories like this, which Matt Margolis posted on PJ Media: Francisco José Contreras, a politician in Spain, was temporarily suspended from Twitter last week after declaring that “a man cannot get pregnant” because he has “no uterus or eggs,” in response to an article he shared about a transgender “male”…

Chart of children in poverty by race and marriage

Childhood poverty is (almost) all about marriage.

By Justin Katz | May 12, 2021 |

Why do advocates downplay the true face of child poverty in Rhode Island and its most-obvious cause?

Calgary pastor arrested in the street.

Another narrative of victimization is right there for the media taking. (Spoiler: they’ll leave it alone.)

By Justin Katz | May 11, 2021 |

As we watch the cycle of moral panics churning over one another — each being replaced for a season or two and then resuming for another turn — it’s important to keep in mind how easy it is to construct narratives.  On a continent of hundreds of millions in a world of billions, a well-networked,…

This Is A Sign church sign

Your responsibility starts with things you can control.

By Justin Katz | May 10, 2021 |

That simple truism, which buzzed around my ears as I mowed the lawn this weekend, holds in politics, in family, in religion… in life. I was catching up on various podcasts from recent weeks, and as I began to feel my mental muscles tensing up to battle a global conspiracy seeking a “Great Reset,” I…

Chromosomes

Transgenderism is turning public policy into a mind-bending game

By Justin Katz | May 10, 2021 |

Gail Heriot — a civil rights attorney and law professor — gives a quick summary, over on Instapundit, of the argumentative bind of transgender activists in the Biden Administration trying to force the College of the Ozarks to allow men who identify as women to live in girls’ dorms: If an anatomical woman who wears dresses…

Mike Stenhouse and Michelle Cretella on In the Dugout

The vaccine is becoming a rolling stone with government weight behind its momentum.

By Justin Katz | May 7, 2021 |

Mike Stenhouse’s In the Dugout show, yesterday, took up the issues around COVID-19 vaccination from multiple directions, yesterday, including the concept of “vaccine shedding.”  For the conversation, Doctors Michelle Cretella and Andrew Bostom joined the show.  Stenhouse also touched on TCI, transgenderism, and other topics.

Panelists for Legal Insurrections Unity Not Division event

Barrington can be a start to a more-mature discussion about race.

By Justin Katz | May 7, 2021 |

Through his Legal Insurrection blog and the related foundation, Barrington resident and Cornell law professor William Jacobson has been hosting some excellent online panels, and he’s just announced one for May 23 at 8:00 p.m. that takes up the topic of addressing race in his hometown.  The compelling title of the presentation is, “Unity Not Division:…

River and mill in Pawtucket, RI.

For a brief time Rhode Island had three seats in Congress.

By Justin Katz | May 6, 2021 |

That’s one of the telling details from a characteristically easy-to-read and historically informed essay by Steve Frias in the Cranston Herald.  In a nutshell, unionization and a refusal to adapt to a changing economy have been costing Rhode Island population, economic activity, and relevance for more than a half century: Unable to remake itself following this…