Written

A water drop and ripples

There’s only one reason to ban bulletproof vests for citizens…

By Justin Katz | December 20, 2022 |

… as New York has done.  It’s to make civilians more vulnerable.  Supporters framed their intention as making bad people more vulnerable to the police, as during mass shootings, but the ban doesn’t apply only to bad actors. As simple common sense, policies designed to make people more vulnerable ought to be approached with suspicion. …

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration of Hans Christian Anderson's The Emperor's New Clothes

Are you represented in the Rhode Island House?

By Justin Katz | December 20, 2022 |

Although the core political story in Rhode Island is inevitably Democrat, this isn’t a partisan post.  The one detail I recall from Amity Shlaes’s book, Coolidge, that detracted from the 30th President’s story was an anecdote from when he was the Republican president of the Massachusetts Senate.  A lobbyist persuaded him to go one way on…

A water drop and ripples

They’re preemptively trying to sell this as evidence of global warming…

By Justin Katz | December 20, 2022 |

… but keep an eye out for claims of increased flooding that could be caused by a wobbling moon (which, if it needs to be said, is in no way related to carbon emissions): Beware, coastal communities. The U.S. is set to face a surge in high-tide floods along its coasts due to a “wobble”…

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

Is education the solution to abortion?

By Justin Katz | December 19, 2022 |

Clearing out some links from the past year, I came across this abortion-related interview with URI student Antonia Simmons by The Public Radio’s Lynn Arditi.  This part makes me wonder if maybe all that’s needed is more education about biology: I am a 20 year old woman and I deserve the right to make my…

A house made of money

Ninety Million “Super” Contradictions to RI Officials’ Statements about Homelessness

By Monique Chartier | December 18, 2022 |

Addressing homelessness requires tracing the economic causes to their roots, including (for example) money provided to politically connected projects like the Superman Building rehab.

A chart of RI students by school type compared with comparable other states.

Elorza is right to avoid Providence schools for his son.

By Justin Katz | December 17, 2022 |

A peculiar aspect of the mental abuse promulgated by progressives in Rhode Island (and the labor union activists who control them and the state) is the predicament in which they forbid honest discussion about issues like school reform, thus condemning students to substandard education, while casting aspersions at those who seek better for their own…

Jose Clemente Orozco, The Clowns of War Arguing in Hell

“Stamping Out Hate” is not the way to address bigotry, including anti-Semitism.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2022 |

People of Jewish heritage (as distinct from the “alliances” that claim to represent them) would arguably be better off if antisemites felt more comfortable expressing their views.

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…

A disintegrating apple in a child's hand

Apple is a case study in the danger of cultish consumerism.

By Justin Katz | November 30, 2022 |

A scorecard of tech giants would take some work to develop, but Apple is a shameful enterprise, whether it’s better or worse than its alternatives: Tucker Carlson blasts Apple after the company limited the AirDrop feature in China: “Apple is now an active collaborator with China’s murderous police state. When tanks roll into a Chinese…