Culture

A water drop and ripples

Maybe Stephen King started it with his approach to villain-picking.

By Justin Katz | April 27, 2023 |

As an undergrad, back when the Internet was still brand new, I decompressed by reading through Stephen King books borrowed from the Carnegie Mellon library and noticed something.  One of his recurring techniques was to imagine the familiar as the monster.  Cujo was a dog.  Christine was a cool car.  Firestarter was a little girl.  The title…

A masked figure shushes silence

Bud Light has provided a warning case for our culture.

By Justin Katz | April 14, 2023 |

If you pay attention to non-leftwing media and/or haven’t blocked or muted anybody who isn’t progressive on social media, you’re likely to have heard that Anheuser-Busch has taken a huge financial hit after a young marketing executive aligned the company fully with radical gender ideologues by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a man whose…

Child being grabbed by monsters

Something more than hypocrisy is going on on the Left.

By Justin Katz | March 15, 2023 |

We’re probably all feeling the increasing (let’s say) incoherence of things over the past decade or more, but I’ve found it clarifying.  Distinctions and beliefs have reached cartoonish levels, which teaches lessons that may continue to apply in subtler degree when (if) life moves back toward sanity. One may long have suspected that progressives (once,…

A water drop and ripples

Indoctrinated wokesters are deluging American institutions.

By Justin Katz | March 9, 2023 |

You can watch it happening in particular with advocacy organizations.  Where once they had very specifically defined missions — like RI Kids Count keeping track of information about children in the state of Rhode Island — that mission becomes merely a mild flavor differentiation from every other progressive organization.  Witness: The divisive racism is bad…

A water drop and ripples

And we await the official statements about hate not being tolerated…

By Justin Katz | February 20, 2023 |

Let’s see how different the reaction is to this incident compared with vandalism targeting other religious groups.

A turkey chases a pilgrim with an ax

The John Loughlin Show: Highlights from the Turn of the Year

By John Loughlin | February 18, 2023 |

Clips from the John Loughlin show that carried Rhode Islanders through the holiday season and into the new year.

A teacher reads to children

Maybe we should try for a more-empathetic political atmosphere.

By Justin Katz | January 13, 2023 |

Somewhere or other in my social media flow, I recently came across the outrage of a moment, wherein a director of communications for a school district jumped in to halt a Dr. Seuss reading that had prompted discussion of America’s racial past: The assistant director of communications for Olentangy Local School District abruptly stopped the…

Liquid pouring into an invisible glass

Who Can Claim Cooperation as a Core Value

By Justin Katz | December 29, 2022 |

Whether Western Civilization is fundamentally build on a principle of cooperation is a fundamental philosophical dividing line in our current politics.

A water drop and ripples

When the mainstream thinks they’re counterculturalists…

By Justin Katz | December 19, 2022 |

This tweet from local left-wing writer Phil Eil, quoting WPRO journalist Steve Klamkin, is some months old, but it’s still worth a head-shaking ponder: Is it possible that progressives don’t recognize that their co-ideologues are the ones forbidding a counterculture from forming because they’re in power and don’t want alternative views to be heard?  Is…

A water drop and ripples

Ethan Shorey is inspiring a short story.

By Justin Katz | December 6, 2022 |

Something about a pair of tweets from Valley Breeze editor Ethan Shorey feels like inspiration for a short story (or maybe a poem): The journalist is quietly sitting out there in the community, reporting to his 6,657 followers in a judgmental way about what somebody is saying to somebody else within his hearing.  That person may never…