Written

A water drop and ripples

An unsurprising finding that social media is bad for your mental health.

By Justin Katz | November 18, 2021 |

Cal Newport describes an interesting natural experiment created by the way Facebook rolled out from one campus to the next: The authors of this paper connect a dataset containing the dates when Facebook was introduced to 775 different colleges with answers from seventeen consecutive waves of the National College Health Assessment (NCHA), a comprehensive and longstanding…

A man in a plague mask on a swing

Hey! Maybe the solution for health care staff shortage is more mandates!

By Justin Katz | November 18, 2021 |

Problems with Rhode Island’s health care industry indicate an across-the-board failure of government management.  Remember when they shut down our economy to avoid overwhelming our medical infrastructure?  Well, that move — and all that came after it — may be resulting in a much more intractable, longer-term failure. Want to count the ways? One. Staff at…

A water drop and ripples

One state’s child pornography is another state’s mental health aid.

By Justin Katz | November 18, 2021 |

In South Carolina, school districts and now the governor have taken parental concerns about explicit material in school libraries, as Matt McGregor reports for The Epoch Times: “It has come to my attention that public schools in South Carolina may be providing students with access—whether in school libraries, electronic databases, or both—to completely inappropriate books and…

A water drop and ripples

The parental-rights narrative is always being framed.

By Justin Katz | November 18, 2021 |

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it characterized as “doubling down” before when a party to a lawsuit has appealed to a higher court, but here’s Sarah Doiron on WPRI: Several parents who are challenging the state’s school mask mandate are doubling down on their efforts by appealing a Rhode Island Superior Court judge’s…

A chart of Native American life expectancy vs. the average

Encouraging fixation on historical harms isn’t helping the disadvantaged.

By Justin Katz | November 18, 2021 |

At the risk of expressing a forbidden opinion, this is not a healthy perspective: Even if Indigenous people spend Thanksgiving with family and festivities, [Tomaquag Museum executive director Lorén Spears] said, “They still know that this isn’t always a happy time for us because it reminds us of all the trauma and loss that our…

A water drop and ripples

Nicole Solas talks to National Review

By Marc Comtois | November 17, 2021 |

Nicole Solas and Jon Riches of the Goldwater Institute talked to Rich Lowry of National Review about Nicole’s ongoing battle against the South Kingstown School Department.    

Kansas anti-mandate protesters

Historical analogies for the hated other.

By Justin Katz | November 17, 2021 |

If history repeated with a twist, would you notice?  I’ve wondered that often, over the years, and have marveled how difficult it seems for people to spot trends and recognize analogies. A recent example came courtesy of Paul Dion when he commented, “Absolutely disgusting,” while sharing a tweet by “they/them” California techy Chad Loder: In…

A water drop and ripples

Courts will weigh in on whether schools can lie to parents about helping students change their identities.

By Justin Katz | November 17, 2021 |

Transgenderism in schools is one of those strange issues that is simply so odd many people will just not process it, to the point of denial, while others will insist on seeing it as completely normal advancement in human interactions, but that is going to determine answers to profound questions, whether we acknowledge the issue…

Homeless man "seeking human kindness"

Who thought it was a good idea to throw $36 million dollars at the government of Woonsocket?

By Justin Katz | November 17, 2021 |

With that question, I mean Woonsocket as representative of municipal governments generally. The city is in the midst of the process of figuring out how to spend the $36 million dollars the federal government will send its way as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).  You’ll recall that the purpose of the act…

A water drop and ripples

St. Paul rent control is a good reminder for RI progressives to think before they act.

By Justin Katz | November 17, 2021 |

Even before it goes into effect, a new rent-control law in St. Paul, Minnesota, is backfiring: “Less than 24 hours after St. Paul voters approved one of the country’s most stringent rent control policies, Nicolle Goodman’s phone started to ring,” the Star-Tribune reports. “Developers were calling to tell the city’s director of planning and economic…