Essay
Baseball is a sport that is built on numbers. How many home runs a player has, how many strikeouts a pitcher has, his ERA or a hitter’s batting average. Most fans understand these numbers, how to figure them out and generally what they mean. A hitter who gets a hit three times out of ten…
Mark Zaccaria, whose tenure as Chair of the RIGOP was unexpected extended last night, issued the following statement this morning. RIGOP Deadlocked on New Chair Cranston: The State Central Committee of the Rhode Island Republican Party met in convention Thursday night to elect new leadership for the upcoming two year term. The convention was held…
… earlier this week on Varney & Co by not vigorously defending the social program that made Woonsocket the subject of that Washington Post article. Don’t miss the part where Mayor Fontaine holds up a state application for food stamps and points out that the last page of it is a voter registration form. (H’mmm,…
[10:22] The parliamentarian has ruled the vote invalid, and the Charimanship will be revoted on another night. [10:19] Hall over Olson 109 – 75 for 2nd Vice Chair. Platform fails 95 – 85. Calise over Talan 112 – 68. Smiley over Harrop 94 – 93 BUT that’s one more vote than the number of people…
This afternoon, the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee will hear two same-sex marriage bills, S0708 which would put the question to a Constitutional voter referendum in 2014, and S0038 which would directly authorize same-sex marriage by statute. In terms of the guarantees of “protection of religious freedom in marriage”, the bills are polar opposites. The…
We, as a society, need to give deference to traditions upon which good governance is built, but, like corsets, manual typewriters, and LP records, the Rhode Island “Master Lever’s” time has passed. It is time to allow it to retire with dignity into the memories of our grandparents and public affairs’ historians. Contrary to what…
What are Governor Lincoln Chafee’s three Ts of economic development, again? Is it talent, technocrats, and tolerance? Or is it technology, tolerance, and twee ideological fashion? It can be so difficult to keep these gimmicky strategies straight. This particular strategy is also turning out to be difficult to make work. In fact, it may just…
According to Kim Kalunian’s story on 630WPRO.com, 30 out of 50 of the adult test takers received a score that wouldn’t allow them to graduate from high school. At least on the first try. However, what does that tell us? Does the correlation say that these people who scored poorly will not be a success…
I try to be an equal-opportunity curmudgeon, but when the General Assembly does some good, it’s only fair to point that out as well. Referred by a tip from Ian Donnis’ twitter feed I found out that Capitol TV is now available online, both streaming and archived video on demand. This is great for someone…
The message making the rounds on Rhode Island’s January employment numbers is that it represented a slight, if mixed, improvement, because the unemployment rate fell to 9.8%, the lowest it’s been since early 2009. A large reason for that fact, however, is that a methodological revision by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics made more…