Written

Goya Attended by Doctor

Watch the inversion from their responsibility to care for you to your responsibility to die for them.

By Justin Katz | May 16, 2023 |

In recent conversation with Tim Ferriss, Canadian writer-explorer Wade Davis took a slight detour to speak of the community benefits of Canada’s socialized healthcare system: It has everything to do with social solidarity. It has everything to do with every Canadian knowing that they belong, and knowing that if their kid gets sick, they will…

A young woman shushes

The RI media is deliberately ignoring the most-important story in education.

By Justin Katz | May 10, 2023 |

Announcing the move of his cable news show to Twitter, Tucker Carlson suggests that most of what mainstream journalists report is factually true, but their stories are chosen and constructed so as to paint a completely false image of reality.  Take Rhode Island education as an example. As long as I’ve been following the story, government-run…

Arms hold an anchor above the water

“Pay equity” mandates are another weight dragging down the Ocean State.

By Justin Katz | May 9, 2023 |

Clearing out some old links reminded me that Rhode Island’s “pay equity” statute goes into effect this year, as Jack Kelly wrote in Forbes in late 2021.  While generally supportive of the legislation, Kelly did acknowledge the potential for “unintended consequences”: According to Joshua Nadreau, a partner in the Boston office of the labor and employment…

Lighthouse on Goat Island at sunset with Newport Bridge in the background.

Newport’s character and cost is a matter of choice.

By Justin Katz | April 28, 2023 |

Artsy people’s complaining about gauche wealth-culture is nothing new, but something about this complaint by progressive podcaster and musician Bill Bartholomew struck me as oblivious of the obvious: Working late on Friday to frame out a roof on Ocean Drive 15 years ago, while watching BMWs roll by, I had similar thoughts.  But I also…

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…

Justice for Jeann Lugo Despite the Defamatory Video

By Monique Chartier | April 27, 2023 |

Jeann Lugo was acquitted in November of simple assault against Jennifer Rourke at the State House melee last June. The other criminal charge against Lugo, disorderly conduct, had been dismissed in August. Now a three member panel of police officers, in a process arising out of LEOBOR, has unanimously voted to set aside the firing of…

A dark classroom

Don’t miss the fact teachers unions want standardization… for themselves.

By Justin Katz | April 26, 2023 |

Sometimes the cognitive dissonance from special-interest ideologues’ commentary is so strong it’s difficult to know whether they’re brainwashing, trolling, or both. Consider this tweet from Rhode Island labor union executive and progressive activist Patrick Crowley: Before Crowley moved up the union-organizer ranks and was still specifically with the National Education Association of Rhode Island, I…

An indoor self-storage facility.

Think more deeply about self-storage bans.

By Justin Katz | April 21, 2023 |

Justin Roias — the Providence City Councilor for the ward covering the North End — doesn’t like self-storage facilities. That’s fine, but his response and reasoning raise crucial points of organization and problem solving: I came across Roias’s tweet via Rachel Miller, who is participating in “the effort to update our zoning laws to prohibit…

A wolf removes its sheep mask

What is the alternative to schools’ “outing kids to their parents”?

By Justin Katz | April 20, 2023 |

Vague policies with no safeguards and no accountability that imagine the ideal school personnel against the most monstrous parents are the giveaway that progressives and the state Department of Education aren’t actually putting the well-being of children first.

Young adults covering each other's mouths

Why are the “most educated” suddenly the most afraid of information liberty?

By Justin Katz | April 18, 2023 |

Observing that a significant majority of Americans now believe the COVID lab-leak theory despite the idea’s having recently been banned on “Big Tech platforms,” Glenn Greenwald recalls a 2021 Pew Research finding that over a mere three-year span the percentage of Democrats who support big-tech censorship had grown from 60% to 76%, and (worse, in…