Culture

Seniors and Heritage

By John Loughlin | July 2, 2022 |

John Loughlin talks with Tony Lemonde of Senior’s Choice RI and Derrick Morgan of the Heritage Foundation.

Louise Kiessling, Andrea Martin, and Susan Orban on State of the State

State of the State: Promoting Children’s Mental Health

By Susan Orban | June 19, 2022 |

Host Susan Orban discusses the mental health of children and how books can help with Louise Kiessling and Andrea Martin.

A water drop and ripples

What’s the supporter overlap between suicide-barriers and physician-assisted suicide?

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2022 |

This is probably a strange question to pose, but nonetheless, one wonders.  As the state government moves toward spending big money on suicide barriers that will inevitably change the aesthetic character of the bridges on which they’re installed, what is the belief system underlying our local culture?  Where do supporters for such things stand on,…

A water drop and ripples

Social justice wokism is a means for elite self-righteousness.

By Justin Katz | June 14, 2022 |

To live in the shoreline suburbs of Rhode Island is periodically to encounter raw evidence that progressivism has gained its purchase here, at least in part, as a way for some of the most privileged people in human history to feel themselves even more superior while assuaging their own guilt by accusing those who are…

Theodore Gericault, Heroic Landscape with Fishermen

The smart set needs to ponder the value of historical limitations.

By Justin Katz | June 14, 2022 |

An episode of the High Noon podcast featuring Oren Cass brought to mind a point relevant to my break from social media. Cass is, in some respects, a contrarian in conservative circles, expressing some healthy skepticism against the free-market bent of the Right (a bent, to be clear, toward which I definitively incline).  The assumptions of…

A girl on her phone in a digital stream

We’re putting aside social media for the summer.

By Justin Katz | June 14, 2022 |

Sometimes the commentary on social media gives one the impression of an alternate reality. At the highest level, social media is a world of information, which means it can be entirely abstract.  You can say or imagine anything, and the more you live apart from tangible reality, the less what you say and imagine has…

A joint in a dirty hand.

As with guns, the culture is important to consider when it comes to marijuana.

By Justin Katz | June 1, 2022 |

The issues of gun regulation and marijuana legalization have an interesting overlap, even as they head in opposite directions. To increase regulation of the former, advocates insist that we focus on the implements used for harm (the guns) and eschew — sometimes with great vehemence and insult to those who disagree — the notion that…

2022 is finally defined.

By Justin Katz | May 29, 2022 |

Harry Potter plays Weird Al Yankovic in what appears to be a quasi-fiction movie from a streaming service. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this.

A water drop and ripples

The logic of “gun control” is not difficult to follow.

By Justin Katz | May 29, 2022 |

Reviewing the details of school shootings, the other day for an online conversation, I was struck by how clearly banning a particular style of gun or access-related regulations will not solve the problem.  They may or may not be justified on their merits, but to treat such policies as if they are obvious fixes is…

Colors in a bubble

The flag of inclusion operates in an inverted way.

By Justin Katz | May 27, 2022 |

When I returned to college in 1996, after two years of difficult, low-paying labor, I pledged a fraternity, and one of the brothers asked another pledge and me to remove a triangle rainbow sticker that somebody had slapped on the rear bumper of his truck. I had to ask what the sticker meant, and the…