Essay
What can one do but marvel that Providence Journal page B.01 columnist Bob Kerr would commit this to print: It’s a day to be silly. We’re not just inaugurating a president; we’re inaugurating a whole new way of life in which the entire country becomes its own reality show. People watch us from other places,…
“Lukewarm” support for the FMA is just fine, Mr. President. See my piece today on NRO for details.
A previous posting highlighted how the coarsening of our public debate in America has resulted from the use of extreme language that only seeks to intimidate, not to persuade. Subsequently, there was the usual talk after the election about how the conservative winners should “moderate” their views, a code word suggesting that capitulating on key…
A 230-word piece in the Providence Journal nicely captures the good that disputatious writers like Edward Achorn and (to a much lesser extent… for now) us here at Anchor Rising can do: [RI House Speaker William] Murphy had said he would seek an advisory opinion from the state Supreme Court, but said today that he…
I received the December 2004 issue of The Proposition, a publication of the Claremont Institute. As a graduate of Harvey Mudd College, one of the Claremont Colleges, who also satisfied the requirements for a political science major at Claremont McKenna College, I found one of the quotes in the issue to be an interesting perspective…
Thanks to the weekly Political Scene column in the Providence Journal, we have learned that more legislative kin are being employed in our judiciary. A relative choice Another member of the family of longtime state Sen. John F. McBurney has landed a job in the state courts. The senator’s nephew, Gregory M. McBurney, was given…
Matthew Jerzyk of Providence has a particularly restrictive view of the appropriate content of public monuments: We have hundreds of places in our city for monuments of the Ten Commandments; they are called churches. Our public spaces, however, should be reserved to memorialize our common faith in government. For example, if any city official wants…
Today the nation honors the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and I think it proper to post some excerpts from King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. (It can be read in its entirety here). It is an inspirational piece in which King called upon our nation’s heritage, both political and religious, to justify…
William Harris of Barrington proves that I’m not alone in seeing a bit of nitpicking in the ethics charges against Governor Carcieri: A more cynical analysis might conclude that it is an example of a state body hounding the governor to accomplish partisan objectives. While I support the goals of ethics reform, I believe it…
This story appeared almost two weeks ago, but I wanted to do a little research and give the matter some thought: The School Committee requested clarification from the courts after Cheryl McCullough, who worked as a health teacher and guidance counselor at Tiverton High School for 27 years, applied for health insurance for Joyce Boivin,…