Written

A young woman shushes

Critical race theory enters with tilted treatment of “funds of knowledge.”

By Justin Katz | December 14, 2021 |

The method is to train teachers with theories and techniques that are reasonable on their face, but that are joined with ideological preferences that are communicated in hidden assumptions. 

A water drop and ripples

Another contrarian observation about climate change.

By Justin Katz | December 14, 2021 |

Well, salmon should be hoping for global warming, anyway: Melting glaciers may produce thousands of miles of new Pacific salmon habitat, a study published Tuesday by Nature Communications found. As glaciers in the mountains of western North America melt, or retreat, they could produce around 4,000 miles of new Pacific salmon habitat by the year…

A water drop and ripples

Why would there be accountability for droning children in Afghanistan?

By Justin Katz | December 14, 2021 |

Remember when the American military accidentally blew up an aid worker and seven children in his family? Yeah, well, nobody will face consequences for that: “What we saw here was a breakdown in process and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership,”…

Hospital beds

The idea of patients should be de-romanticized.

By Justin Katz | December 14, 2021 |

As we construct the stories by which we understand reality, we tend to romanticize people when they’re generalized.  In healthcare, for instance, patients are “people who need help,” and we have a set of emotions and moral ideas associated with them as a concept. The problem is people need all sorts of kinds of help,…

A water drop and ripples

Environmentalism seems to being doing tremendous damage to the planet!

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2021 |

This deliciously contrarian article by Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon suggests that our planet is increasingly green, no thanks to the environmentalist mania of the last half-century in Western countries: The planet’s ecology is thriving thanks to carbon dioxide, despite first world policies that are undermining it. The ironic benefactors in this story are countries…

Children at sunset

COVID might have brought a new normal in enrollment, but it didn’t change racial trends.

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2021 |

One of the questions on my mind when I thought to create the Rhode Island Public Schools October Enrollment application in Anchor Rising’s People’s Data Armory was the effect of COVID and shutdowns.  As the chart below shows, enrollment in 2020 was down about 3% from the prior year, and it slid a bit rather than…

A water drop and ripples

The foundation of government anti-COVID policy isn’t sound research and science.

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2021 |

As we wait with great anticipation proclamations from on high at the State House as to how we must live our lives in the Ocean State, David Catron’s explanation is worth reading about how some of the Biden administration’s own anti-COVID policies are manifestly not founded in science: Last Thursday, President Biden announced his “COVID-19…

A water drop and ripples

“Moderate” is changing as the Democrats’ reality overwhelms their rhetoric.

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2021 |

Responding to a Josh Hammer column on Newsweek, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds follows up Hammer’s suggestion that Republicans have to “nurture,” not “squander” their political inroads with new voters by highlighting the importance of clarity: That’s the hard part. But yeah, the GOP is becoming a multiethnic party of small business and the working class, while the Democrats…

A hooded man in shadows

Providence murder mysteries can be solved if you use the word, “gangs.”

By Justin Katz | December 13, 2021 |

Nobody should feel encouraged by statements from Democrat Mayor Jorge Elorza or the other Democrats who run the city after another shooting in Providence on Saturday night.  Elorza may claim to “understand that our community needs and deserves to feel safe,” but that isn’t possible when authorities refuse to be clear about what’s going on.…

Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Remains of the Praetorian Castro

Why should soldiers be satisfied with their wages?

By Justin Katz | December 12, 2021 |

John the Baptist’s suggestion to Roman soldiers in today’s Gospel reading at Roman Catholic Mass has always left me feeling as I was missing some historical context: And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” He said to them in reply, “Whoever has two tunics should share with the person who has none.…