Written

John DePetro on the Ukraine-Poland border

Does the RI media know DePetro’s providing international journalism?

By Justin Katz | March 15, 2022 |

Just as he was out and about regularly reporting on Antifa/BLM protests in the Providence area, just as he was covering large protests against Governor Dan McKee’s vaccine mandate for health care worker, John DePetro has travelled to Poland and the Ukraine border to provide live, on-the-scene reportage. So many young children from Ukraine being…

A water drop and ripples

Has our COVID experience opened the gate for skepticism about The Pill?

By Justin Katz | March 15, 2022 |

It’s interesting how topics bubble up in the constant flow of information in which we swim, these days.  Yesterday, I came across Martha Rosenberg’s interview with women’s health advocate Mike Gaskins, whose research has investigated the science and politics with which the birth-control pill became a cultural mainstay: Several years ago, I heard a lecture…

Tiles with abuse words

The Providence teachers union goes full DARVO.

By Justin Katz | March 15, 2022 |

The amazing thing about Sarah Doiron’s report on the staged protest of the state Department of Education by teachers union members  is that it doesn’t say why the state took control of their schools.  The audacity is nothing short of shocking: More than 100 teachers marched the streets of Providence Monday afternoon to demand the state…

Store signage

Why does Brianna Henries want to make life worse for working Rhode Islanders?

By Justin Katz | March 14, 2022 |

I’ve been trying to figure out which is the case:  Either politicians have developed such thorough contempt for the people that they assume we’re complete fools whom they can deceive with impunity or we’re allowing people to gain public office whom a healthy civilization would have kept well away from the controls. The problem goes…

Image of COVID as planet Earth

Governor McKee Declines to Comment about 854 Unvaccinated Health Care Workers

By Monique Chartier | March 13, 2022 |

We recently learned, deep in a Rhode Island Department of Health report, that as of last month, 854 unvaccinated healthcare workers have been permitted to continue to work without medical exemption in violation of the state’s vaccine mandate.   Major credit to Dr. Andrew Bostom for finding and publicizing this remarkable and disturbing document. Further…

Great Depression bread line

Today’s wasn’t a very good employment report for RI.

By Justin Katz | March 11, 2022 |

Almost since I began keeping an eye on it, the unemployment rate has primarily been a means of disguising the underlying weakness of RI’s economy.  With the latest iteration, the AP writer seems to accentuate the positive, but you don’t have to dig far to see the negative — as far, say, as the state…

A model house and key

Statistics come up short for charges of racism in housing.

By Justin Katz | March 11, 2022 |

A lack of housing is a problem, and racism is simply wrong, so we have powerful emotional incentive to join the two matters into the story we tell about our society.  In a more-specific way, advocates and researchers have even more-powerful economic incentive to do so.  In that space, as with “equity audits” in schools,…

Neon mushrooms

We should more hallucinogenics toward legalization.

By Justin Katz | March 9, 2022 |

For the record, I’ve never tried hallucinogenic drugs.  Even as a reckless teenager who was otherwise open to self destruction, I knew myself well enough not to roll the dice on that experiment. This disclaimer is context for my agreement with progressive Democrat state representative Brandon Potter’s proposal to move toward decriminalization of psilocybin, which…

Teacher and students

School districts still have illegal provisions in their contracts.

By Justin Katz | March 9, 2022 |

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has localized a study from the Mackinac Center finding that some school districts in Rhode Island continue to have provisions in their teacher contracts that don’t reflect the right of teachers to work without joining the union and requiring express consent to enroll them: According to the Mackinac…

A water drop and ripples

Paying your debts is social justice.

By Justin Katz | March 8, 2022 |

Maybe I’m just entering that late-middle-age phase, but it seems to me that younger adults — or all of us, with reference to times that were before our time — too infrequently understand the experience of the past.  Consider this find from Tim Worstall for Accuracy in Media: A new piece from Teen Vogue says that…