Postcard from Rhode Island
Entering bankrupt Central Falls
Is Rhode Island “The Little State that Could”? – as Time magazine put it, praising its treasurer and pension reforms?
It’s the little state that had to, IMHO.
Tags: economy, Ohio, Rhode Island, states
To Seattle! Job or no
Census numbers show that young and educated Americans are going to places where people like them already live.
And most are not in the Sunbelt.
‘COOL’ CITIES ARE NOT NECESSARILY WARM
Tags: Arizona, California, culture, Massachusetts, New York City, Oregon, Texas, Washington state, Wisconisn
For those who don’t have everything
For obvious reasons, finding gifts for our jobless friends and relatives should be fairly easy.
Christmas in RI
You want Christmas lights? Here are Christmas lights!
Home of Frank Picozzi in Warwick, RI.
Tags: Rhode Island
The hitch with Hitchens
It bugs me that the NYT stopped the paper presses to report the passing of public intellectual Christopher Hitchens. Hitch was a superb writer, sharp wit and courageous changer of opinion. But a towering world figure he was not.
“Hitch” was full of baloney much of the time. What really made me resign from his fan club was his moronic sexism. In one case, he dismissed Hillary Clinton, during her 2008 run for president, as “an aging and resentful female.” Clinton is three months younger than Mitt Romney.
Hitchens belonged to the anglo tradition of male-bonded drinking, smoking and wenching. That’s the boys’ business, but the dated sexism creeping into Hitchens’ public commentary drained its intellectual power. Hitchens’ act was to perpetually wave his self-righteous, moralistic fist — and it gets mixed reviews.
Driving under the influence of cellphones
Alexander Graham Bell
Kudos to those brave bureaucrats at the National Transportation Safety Board who urged all states to ban all mobile-phone use while driving, including headsets and voice-activated systems. Won’t happen anytime soon, but at least it’s a start.
DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CELLPHONES
Tags: culture, Washington
Why Frenchwomen don’t get fat
Could it be the cigarettes and fen-phen?
OTHER REASONS FRENCHWOMEN DON’T GET FAT
The Civics Center opens
As my friends and enemies know, I’m a highly opinionated columnist who (for this year) heads a group called the National Conference of Editorial Writers. The NCEW runs something called the Civility Project, which aims to raise the quality of public discourse. There are those who see a conflict between my writings and my link to something called the Civility Project. I do not.
However. Our use of the word “civility” is based on the original definition of the word, which has to do with good citizenship. The notion that civility is about manners or good breeding came later. That many associate “civility” with the more common, modern usage is understandable.
And that’s why I want to give my take on the subject a less ambiguous name. The Civics Center has a nice ring, does it not? Keep coming back here for my take on the decline of civic discourse in this country.
Let me start with this link to David Carr’s NYT piece about a creepy woman who uses online search engine optimization to smear an apparently innocent lawyer — and has done it so well, that anyone who does a Google search on him, comes up with the impression that he is a very bad man.
Talk about creepy. This is what Google’s faceless algorythms do us. They let cruel, crazy or devious people “create an alternative reality,” in Carr’s words, that can ruin a person’s reputation.
Newt and The Donald Dancing Together
It’s hard to recall two publicity machines working so well in concert as that of Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump.
NEWT AND THE DONALD A-COURTING GO
Tags: politics, Republicans
Paper is more forever
The most cherished expressions of love come in the mailbox, not the inbox.
