Essay
This posting continues a periodic series on Rhode Island politics and taxation, building on three previous postings (I, II, III). My town of East Greenwich has an increasingly ugly dispute between School Committee officials and teachers’ union officials. The dispute has been highlighted in local newspaper articles (here, here, here, here, here). Comments by National…
Well, after expending so much time defending the ideals put forth in President Bush’s speech, I find it a bit disheartening, though predictable, to see that some are trying to portray that the Administration may be engaged in damage control. For my part, I don’t think that the President was “shifting” his policy with this…
The temporary part-time job delivering Christmas packages in Tiverton that I took to cross the financial finish line in December greatly helped me to gain a sense of my new hometown. (We bought a house here in July.) The most significant impression that the town makes is the dividing line that runs roughly in the…
In a post titled “The Road to Fiefdom,” Paul Musgrave (referring to this article at City Journal) has broadened some specific observations regarding NY City politics into the national scope. As such, I’d venture that his remarks can be just as aptly applied to our own little Blue State. The article focuses largely on the…
It is, and has been, encouraging that the Providence Journal editorial page is willing to argue on the side of rational response to Saddam Hussein: The AP saw no reason to seek further comment on that news [that 120 Iraqi scientists who had been working in weapons programs were being paid by the U.S. government…
Perhaps my age is getting to be such that it is becoming unseemly to trawl among students’ letters to their collegiate newspapers for material. Still, by watching a babe taking its first steps, one may come to a fuller understanding of the precariousness of two-legged movement. Similarly, by considering students’ expression of their professors’ views,…
For anyone interested, I’ve posted some thoughts on the President’s Innaugural Address at The Ocean State Blogger.
According to State Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, much of the debate on charter schools centers around the issues of power and control. Specifically, this battle revolves around which entity, public schools or charter schools, has more of a “right” to money from a finite pool of education dollars. As reported by the Providence Journal, charter…
Email conversation with Sheila Lennon has persuaded me that my statement that “the news department of the Providence Journal is practically campaigning for a change in the law” should, instead, have read “the news department of the Providence Journal has practically advocated for same-sex marriage.” Lennon may not find that language any more accurate, from…
Sitting around a pub’s chest-high table with new acquaintances, a blue-state conservative will look for signs of ideological sympathy. In New England, should the Boston Globe arise in conversation, the canny conservative need only drop one name, before sipping his beer to disguise the true import: Jeff Jacoby. The Globe‘s bio gives an inkling as…