Written

A man in a plague mask on a swing

We must demand more from Governor McKee as he grabs power.

By Justin Katz | August 20, 2021 |

If this is all it takes for the governor to declare “a new state of emergency,” we’re in deep, deep trouble.  We may never, ever be in a state of non-emergency ever again. Enough is enough. No real argument is made.  No sources are cited (only vaguely referenced).  No legal authority is defended.  Any deliberation…

A dark classroom

The problem with labor unions in education really is this obvious… and huge.

By Justin Katz | August 20, 2021 |

This exchange from a brief interview with the Boston Globe’s Dan McGowan is enough to prove retired teacher Michael Marra’s new book worth reading: Q: You’re a former schoolteacher who has become disenchanted with public employee unions. Did you start out that way or did something happen to change your mind? Marra: I didn’t start out that…

Women in burkas

Hyperbole about autocracy may not be about type, but degree.

By Justin Katz | August 19, 2021 |

Thomas Chatterton Williams raises a point worthy of discussion on Twitter (via Instapundit): We have spent the past few years debating how oppressive the U.S. is. These images of Afghans clinging to a U.S. plane and falling from the sky are a damn sobering reminder that while there are no utopias, we’d better appreciate the society…

Michael McCarthy

What Do You Do If the People You Rely On for Faith in Humanity Lose Their Faith in Life?

By Justin Katz | August 19, 2021 |

Rest in peace, Michael McCarthy. We need this to be a world in which the best of people always have hope.

An asteroid in the sky

We must devote all the world’s resources to asteroid protection for the children!

By Justin Katz | August 18, 2021 |

I’m sorry to report, from a Becky Ferreira article on VICE, a threat that could kill tens of millions of people (including children, women, and minorities) within the next 280 years: The odds that one of the most hazardous known asteroids might collide with Earth in the coming centuries just went up, though they are still…

Hospital beds

Don’t forget the people on the sharp end of the mandates.

By Justin Katz | August 18, 2021 |

Most attention has been paid to the question of whom the state has mandated to wear masks (whether or not it has the authority), but an important point has to be made about Governor Dan McKee’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.  Brian Amaral reports for the Boston Globe: If health care workers at state-licensed facilities in…

You are here on the road to serfdom.

By Justin Katz | August 18, 2021 |

Reading about the many failures of our leading class and observing the continuing reluctance of our governing class and its supporters to acknowledge reality, I turned to the illustrated summary of Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. I’d say we are here: Follow the link above for step 10. Hayek was a thinker, not a prophet,…

Viruses on a cell

The RI American Academy of Pediatrics letter ignored 36% of COVID-positive kids who are asymptomatic.

By Justin Katz | August 17, 2021 |

The Boston Globe article to which I linked earlier made a point of citing one statistic from that irresponsible RI American Academy of Pediatrics letter: They said a recent study reports that nearly 5 percent of all COVID-infected children have lingering symptoms such as MIS-C, fatigue, and brain fog for more than four weeks after their…

A masked teddy bear.

The pro-mask sense of entitlement is telling.

By Justin Katz | August 17, 2021 |

Cards on the table:  I do not want my children forced to wear masks in school.  Apart from discomfort and health (including mental health), masks unarguably impede the ability to understand what people are saying and almost obliterate the ability to read facial expressions, which is absolutely critical to education, especially for younger children.  Furthermore,…

This UVA saga shows that woke incentives and systems are terrifying.

By Justin Katz | August 17, 2021 |

The story of Morgan Bettinger at the University of Virginia, as Mairead McArdle describes it for the Daily Wire, is terrifying. Driving home on a Friday last summer, before her senior year, McArdle came upon a BLM-related roadblock.  She got out of her car and chatted with “a city dump truck driver who was blocking the…