Written

A water drop and ripples

No surprise that naturally acquired immunity is proving itself with COVID.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

Perhaps no aspect of the public health response to COVID has increased my skepticism more than the insane and dogged practice of ignoring the immunity that people can gain from having and recovering from COVID-19.  Whether researchers conclude that it is insufficient, too brief, or whatever, credibility required that it be treated as a real…

Justin Katz's political spectrum illustration

For journalists like UConn professor Mike Stanton, tyranny is the first choice.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

Attitudes like this, from former Providence Journal reporter and University of Connecticut journalism professor Mike Stanton fascinate me.  Commenting on Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee’s hesitance to impose a statewide mask mandate, Stanton writes: Yes, poor leadership. Because it’s contrary to what the doctors & experts recommend. I went to PPAC the other night; they required…

A water drop and ripples

At some point, maybe URI’s president will do something that makes me more-proud of my alma mater, rather than less.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

There he is again.  Marc Parlange is in the Boston Globe stumping for the Democrats’ biggest legislative priority with “Build Back Better can pull Rhode Island out of the pandemic — if we invest in the Blue Economy.” Why did the University of Rhode Island hire a lobbyist and ideologue instead of a leader? Yeah, sure, the…

A water drop and ripples

Yup, the United States is still a beacon of hope… for now.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

Robert VerBruggen’s response is perfect to a chart showing how the average disposable income in most European countries is poverty by U.S. standards: This is why people love using “relative” poverty measures. It’s basically dividing by how awesome America is, to make America look un-awesome. The mind-blowing thing is that most European countries could easily…

A man blowing his nose

What makes this something other than “just a cold”?

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

The headline that the Providence Journal gave to Mark Patinkin’s latest column puts things in a useful context: “It’s just a cold, right? I thought a booster made me invulnerable — but I got COVID.”  If we step back a pace and look at things objectively, we might indeed wonder what makes COVID something other than…

Kara's threatening "thank you"

How the Rhode Island opposition can stop harassment.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2021 |

This suggestion from Nicole Solas has stayed near the top of my “to post” list for a month because it gets to an important strategic discussion too often rushed through on the Rhode Island right. Nicole retweeted the picture used as the featured image of this post, which was posted by Kara.  The “thank you”…

A water drop and ripples

Transgenderism sometimes seems conveniently to reinforce male norms.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2021 |

Back in October, a report from the BBC caught the attention of the trans movement because it conveyed the experience of lesbians who’d felt pressured into straight sex with trans-women (i.e., men presenting themselves as women): One woman described her dates with trans-women as conversion therapy: “I knew I wasn’t attracted to them but internalised…

Emotions with masks and shades

Don’t worry! The science has studiously avoided figuring out how harmful masks are to children.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2021 |

Is it just me or do the people who support mask mandates seem deliberately to be avoiding the points that those in opposition are actually making? At some point after my post responding to his call for a statewide mask mandate, Boston Globe reporter and columnist Dan McGowan tweeted a link to the CDC’s (incredibly one-sided)…

A water drop and ripples

Biden is what having a president who is a foreign asset would actually look like.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2021 |

Back when Democrats and members of the media who once had credibility were insisting that President Donald Trump was a foreign asset (that is, doing the bidding of another country’s rulers), wiser people looked at what he was doing.  Like him or not, he was strengthening the United States as a country and limiting the…

A water drop and ripples

The rules are different for Democrats.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2021 |

Now that she’s been confirmed as the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, interest has surged in a video of her berating journalists outside her house while she was still a county district attorney back in January.  The bullying and defensiveness are noteworthy, of course.  It takes a certain personality type to tell a reporter she’s going…