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The 2017 Ocean State Freedom Banquet
On Friday, the Center held our first inaugural fundraising banquet -the 2017 Ocean State Freedom Banquet. At the banquet, a capacity crowd of 200 people were on hand to hear the keynote address by Grover Norquist, famed DC anti-tax warrior and President of Americans for Tax Reform.
A Successful Banquet for the Center
Thank you to the 200+ people who came to our Freedom Banquet today and heard @GroverNorquist speak! Rhode Island has reason to have hope. pic.twitter.com/A2ZyfI4aJ8
— RI Ctr for Freedom⚓️ (@RICenterFreedom) November 10, 2017
Last Impressions 30: Keeping in Touch… for Various Reasons
Sympathy for the racist; learning how (not what) to think; in favor of price gouging and dismantling unions; and saying goodbye to an old friend
A Fixed Mower and a Good Heist
Who’s happier: the family man who mows the lawn and reads a good book, or the thug who gains notoriety for a profitable crime that he then blows because he’s a degenerate?
Speaking Up for the Cranky
Spare a moment for the cranky person whom you encounter (or, ahem, read) and see if you can help him or her resolve the underlying ache.
Budget Season: Opportunity for Articulating a Vision for Rhode Island
Every year, this time of year, the budget for the State of Rhode Island comes out and, accompanied with surrounding legislation (much of it premised, one can infer, on quid pro quo for budget votes) shows the vision of the insiders who run our state. Every year, life in Rhode Island becomes more restrictive, business becomes harder, government budgets go up.
Earlier in this legislative season, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity put out a pair of “Hey, Dude!” radio ads illustrating the point from the perspective of somebody who wants more freebies and somebody who sees the opportunities inherent in a society out from under government’s thumb.
For a little fun, here’s a pair that I’ve put together.
Responding to Matthew Arnold, Tide Still Going Out
[As mentioned (and read) in my latest Last Impressions podcast, Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach” had such an effect on my that I couldn’t stop myself from writing the following response.]
What if the tide is going out? So what?
It ebbs and flows and comes and goes and shows
then only girdle, but soon only gut.
And that soft skin the tide of cloth exposed,
should I see it as vulgar truth displayed
or as my loved one bare, from nose to toes?
Matthew, a younger man than I, though staid,
when he wrote of Dover’s retiring din,
mistook mere hours’ light for life useless — grayed.
Young sir, my elder!
There’s beauty going out as coming in.
The tide’s a tiff, each sally to rebut.
The end o’erwhelmes where you or I begin.
Announcing AFF-RI: Progressivism is not cool.
Progressivism is not cool. Let me repeat that, because it is worth repeating: Progressivism is not cool; it is the opposite of cool. They want to control how you think, what you can say, what you can and cannot do. Progressivism is about dogma, it is not a political movement. It is a cult. The […]
Who Is That Guy?
Rick Snizek, executive editor of the Rhode Island Catholic, has posted a profile of me related to my being awarded a Lumen Gentium award for communication of the Catholic faith:
Katz says that being honored with the award makes him feel as if he has to redouble his efforts to deserve it.
“While I have written quite a bit that has been explicitly Catholic, I’ve tended to see my vocation as a more subtle evangelism,” he says. “In our place and time, many people are entirely unmoored from our Christian roots, and the secular culture has taught them to be suspicious of the religious presentation. Articulating the beautiful logic and practical wisdom of a worldview rooted in Catholic belief and tradition can be the force of revelation in such an environment.”
The dinner and award ceremony — also highlighting the activities of others, whom I’d concede are much more deserving than I am — is next week and, apparently, sold out.
Lumen Gentium Award and Banquet
Among the most significant surprises that this year has brought me was the news that I’ll be receiving a Lumen Gentium award from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. As the Rhode Island Catholic newspaper reports:
The 10 categories of service in which the awards are presented include Parish Service, Community Service and Charitable Outreach, Catholic Education, Evangelization, Communications, Administration and Stewardship, Respect Life, Public Service, Distinguished Catholic Youth and Friend of the Diocese.
The Lumen Gentium awards are presented to honor those “who toil in the vineyard of the Lord,” across the diocese.
Proceeds from this year’s Lumen Gentium Awards banquet, which will be held May 17 at Twin River Event Center in Lincoln, will benefit senior priests who have served the Diocese of Providence.
The category that applies to me is “communications” — basically, defense of the faith in communications media. Honestly, I’m so much more impressed with those who defend the faith through the example of their deeds that I feel the award to be a future-focused call for me to better deserve the honor.
As it is each year, the banquet on May 17 is a fundraising event, this year to support the growing ranks of retired priests, so if you’re able and interested, I’d love to see you there.
Ease on Easter
Easter vigil and eggs hidden for four children kept me up later than I’m accustomed, and (I suspect) a little too much sampling of the candy made me restless in the night. I suppose it’s theologically appropriate to have this mixture of exhaustion and excitement on Easter Day.
Also appropriate, perhaps, is the reminder that one must relax from time to time. I’ve found I can no longer do it. Movie watching I do while folding laundry or some other stationary task. Exercise comes also with reading (on the exercise bike) or podcast listening (on the machine). Some tasks can only be done on their own, such as book reading and piano playing, but these I’ve put on the itinerary as productive tasks.
It occurred to me, while pouring my first post-Lent beer before undertaking the late-night tasks, that I once could sit and listen to night sounds for unplanned spells. Or maybe I’d contribute to the suite with a guitar in hand, but idly, not as practice or on a schedule, simply strumming for as long as I felt like it. Once, at my parents’ apartment, a raccoon poked his head up on the deck to see what I was playing.
It’s a short life, perhaps, but a long wait for the Savior’s return, and relearning how to be at ease can only be healthy. Seems to me there’s a Commandment involved in it, too. Perhaps I’ll make it a resolution for the Easter season and beyond.
Simply sitting and being is difficult, though. Thoughts intrude… challenges to resolve at work, a family to order and raise well, a house to maintain, a community to guide toward a more harmonious and fairer future, and a parade of the “least of these” through whom to serve the Lord. All these demands must be ordered and prioritized and scheduled and planned. How can one simply sit?
I’ll give it a try, today. I see I’ve got an opening from 4:00 to 4:25.
A Shameless Plug
This is a shameless plug. Two, actually. But it’s for two terrific organizations: the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity and the Gaspee Business Network.
Word Choice, Boundaries, and Finding Ways to Communicate
The reasoning behind my use of the word “slut.”
The Conversation Starts Tuesday: Opportunity To Become Self-Sufficient
Everyone concerned about the well-being of our state’s families should be alarmed by our unacceptable 48th-place ranking. It is time to challenge the status quo insider mindset and to search for a more holistic path to help real Rhode Islanders improve their quality of life. This week, the Center will co-host a forum at Bryant University, that will provide an ideal opportunity for community, religious, and political leaders to convene and begin the process.
Leaders… and a New Perspective… Wanted
Could the key to a healthier, more-prosperous Rhode Island be as simple as a change in perspective? Many of us believe so. If the top priority… the first question… the lynch pin… of every policy discussion in the Ocean State were, “How will this affect our families?,” instead of, “Will this disrupt the way government insiders do business?,” a whole new vista of possibilities would arise.
Kicking off an effort to begin changing the perspective of Rhode Island’s movers and decision makers, the Family Prosperity Initiative of Rhode Island is hosting a forum on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 17. During the free event, national and local experts will address the findings of a recent report about the Ocean State’s ranking of 48 among states on the Family Prosperity Index and begin to apply the lessons to the state’s policy environment and civic culture. (Lunch will be served.)
My First Christmas at Home
There are two ways that Christmas can come to feel like every other day, and one of those ways is incalculably better.
Anti-Tolling Rally Tomorrow!
At the truck stop in West Greenwich off Route 95: 849 Victory Highway, West Greenwich, RI 02817. Tuesday, October 18, at 11:00 am. (No question, a bit of a tough time of day for a lot of us working folks.)
The Rhode Island Trucking Association and NATSO, the national association representing travel plazas and truckstops, announced today that they will host an informational rally and press conference Oct. 18 to discuss the devastating effects that “RhodeWorks” — the Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s truck-only tolling plan — will have on local businesses and commercial truck drivers that operate within the state of Rhode Island.
The small group of state officials advocating for truck tolls say that they are necessary because the money to repair our bridges cannot be found within the budget. Like most of the data and talking points that accompanied the passage of truck-only tolls, this is a flat-out lie. This money can be found in the budget. Remember also that, under Governor Gina Raimondo’s highly destructive RhodeWorks toll plan, shepherded through the General Assembly by a flip-flopping Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, hundreds of millions of dollars would be completely squandered on items other than bridge repairs: gantries, toll fees, interest – meaning that hundreds of millions of dollars would be coming out of the pockets of truckers and all Rhode Islanders and going down a rat hole rather than into infrastructure repair.
Adding urgency and danger to the situation, a recent federal court ruling in New York has brought tolls on cars in Rhode Island one giant step closer. As WPRO’s John Loughlin correctly pointed out on air Saturday morning, this is almost certainly why the start of work on the 6/10 Connector was rushed. Governor Raimondo and her organized labor supporters want to be sure to sink their toll claws into the state as quickly as possible by getting projects hooked on this destructive new revenue source ahead of a court ruling. (“Oh darn. The courts ruled that we can’t toll just trucks. We have no choice but to toll cars because look at all of the borrowing and construction that we rushed through … er, that is now underway.”)
In addition to the big red flag of the federal court ruling in New York, it is important to note that no other state tolls only trucks. From the beginning, this posed an enormous constitutional flaw in the RhodeWorks toll law. (For more on this, check out Rep Blake Filippi’s excellent op-ed in Thursday’s Providence Journal.) Accordingly, any state leader or legislator who voted for truck tolls in February took the unnecessary and very dangerous step of inviting the toll vampire into all of our homes. If state leaders don’t wise up and rescind truck tolls, it is now just about impossible to envision a scenario by which the toll vampire doesn’t turn to feast on the blood … er, wallets of car owners. It is critical, therefore, that state legislators who voted for tolls be held accountable. Please go here to see how General Assembly incumbents voted on tolls, where their challengers stand on the matter and vote for the candidate who did NOT invite the toll vampire to Rhode Island.
And if you’re able to get away from work for an hour tomorrow, please also stop by this rally. Garlic is optional. But your presence at the rally and, especially, your anti-toll vote on November 8, would send an important message against the toll vampire.
Happy 240th Birthday To America!
Happy Independence Day from everyone at the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity! As we celebrate the Fourth with our family and friends, it is important to reflect the principles that led to the American revolution. On this anniversary of the original Brexit, we must remember that “US-Away” happened because free people stood up to an imperial power and demand that their rights be respected. In our own time, people are standing up against the elites here in Rhode Island that want to micromanage our lives.
We should all be proud of our fellow citizens working to advance freedom here in the Ocean State. The recent opposition to the Brookings agenda is a good example. Because Rhode Islanders spoke out against RhodeMap RI and central planning, many of the crony corporate welfare deals were squashed before they could begin. The stadium deal and the superman building are two more examples of stopping corporate welfare in Rhode Island. There are reasons to hope. However, we must remain vigilant and continue to speak out. The political elites will continue to try to give special deals to their cronies.
When will the insiders learn? We are warning the status quo against seeking to devolve Rhode Island into a dependent appendage to the Boston economy, or to some other form of regional governance. The citizens of our state demand local control. Centralized plans are not the answer for the Ocean State. We urge lawmakers to reject the concept of a centrally controlled, regional bureaucracy that will infringe on the authority of locally elected officials. Rhode Islanders do not want intrusions into their own lives.
There are better solutions than the central planning of economies and the loss of local control. It is time to end the insider culture where the little guy suffers. As we saw in the recent Brexit vote, citizens are demanding more from their leaders. How many of us would say that the status quo public policy culture in Rhode Island is making anything easier on the average family? For too long, the political elites have thought they’ve known how to better run your life than you do. I encourage you to speak out against the status quo and remember that things can change here in the Ocean State.
And once again, Happy Fourth of July.
[Mike Stenhouse is CEO of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity.]
Please Check Out the Gaspee Business Network Thursday!
On Thursday (June 23, 2016) at 5:30 pm, the Gaspee Business Network will be holding a Partner Information event at the Radisson Hotel, 2081 Post Road, Warwick. If you’re a business owner and you’re not satisfied with the state’s business climate, please consider dropping by to check out the “Incorruptible Voice of Rhode Island Business“.
We will be discussing why the GBN is different from other business networking groups and how you can take part in the most formidable force to fight the hostile business environment so prevalent throughout Rhode Island.
For more information about the GBN, click here. Click here to register for the event. Or just show up!
Good Riddance to 2015 (With Trepidation)
For (probably) my last post of the year, I’ll direct your attention to two articles on NRO. George Will grabs a long list of lowlights from 2015:
We learned that a dismal threshold has been passed. The value of property that police departments seized through civil-asset forfeiture — usually without accusing, let alone convicting, the property owners of a crime — exceeded the value of property stolen by nongovernment burglars. The attorney general of New York, which reaps billions from gambling — casinos, off-track betting, the state lottery — moved to extinguish (competition from) fantasy football because it is gambling. Florida police raided a mahjong game played by four women aged between 87 and 95 because their game’s stakes allegedly exceeded the $10 limit set by state law. A Michigan woman was fingerprinted, had her mug shot taken, and was jailed until released on bond because she was late in renewing the $10 license for her dog. New Jersey police arrested a 72-year-old retired teacher, chained his hands and feet to a bench, and charged him with illegally carrying a firearm — a 300-year-old flintlock pistol (with no powder, flint, or ball) he purchased from an antique dealer.
And on it goes. Then there’s Stephen Miller’s humorous recollections and foreshadowing for President Barack Obama’s final year in office, written as if it’s a TV show titled SOTU:
The television show SOTU premiered a teaser promo on Twitter Tuesday night, hoping to get viewers who have fallen off over the course of recent seasons excited for the long-overdue final season’s premiere on January 12. The season will conclude with a series finale in January 2017.
Not much is revealed about the plot of the upcoming season, but the promo does feature the smirking president (played by Barack Obama) adjusting his white-tie tuxedo, an upbeat image in stark contrast to how last season ended: the country he presides over suffering another devastating terror attack in California, as well as one in Paris, with our hero rushing away to Hawaii.
In the (deliberately) labored preface of my novel, A Whispering Through the Branches, I questioned the significance of a clock turning the gears from one year to another, even when it turns the number for a millennium. This year, I suspect we’ll simply graduate from the foolishness of 2015 to a 2016 that will either be so ridiculous it’s painful or so painful it’s ridiculous.
For the country, 2016’s saving grace may be that the major consequences of the Obama presidency won’t be experienced so soon, just as the major consequences of the Clinton presidency weren’t felt until September 2001 and the recession of the late ’00s. Maybe in our stumbling or our wisdom we’ll choose well in the election, although the odds seem to be against us.
When it comes to Rhode Island, well, not much can be expected. Our governor still has some momentum for her experiment in choosing the wrong direction, but maybe it will be the year the people and the news media start to catch on.
Privacy No Longer a Side Benefit of Tall Structures Like Wind Turbines
A California man vacationing on Aquidneck Island thought he’d send up his personal drone to get some footage of a coastal wind turbine in Portsmouth. Here’s the video:
Providence Journal reporter Patrick Anderson initially thought it was the non-functional turbine owned by the town of Portsmouth, but it’s not. It’s the nearby turbine on the property of the Portsmouth Abbey school. If I’m not mistaken, the man on top is one of the monks (see here). The likelihood is, then, that he isn’t, as the Daily Mail suggested, a “sun worshipper.”
One would think that such a remote height would be a safe place to relax and take in the warmth of God’s bounty, and it would be in a world without a proliferating number of flying video cameras.
Registration Now Required for Commenting
Ocean State Current and Anchor Rising before it have always had completely open commenting systems. Times have changed, though. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have developed to answer a lot of the impetus that used to lead people to leave one-off comments on blogs, and proxy servers have become so commonplace that the light-touch comment management we used to pursue for random stoppers-by isn’t really possible anymore. Meanwhile, many of the comments are from folks who read regularly.
Therefore, some registration will now be required in order to comment. You can use Twitter, Facebook, or Google, or you can register quickly for a Disqus account. It only takes a moment, and it’s still anonymous, if you insist. The only real difference, if you go the Disqus route, is that if you don’t verify your email address, your comment will have to be approved before it appears.
We’ll give it a try and see how it goes.
Dr. Flanigan to Talk at Portsmouth Institute Saturday
Long-time readers will know that I used to write, every year, from the Portsmouth Institute conference on the grounds of the Portsmouth Abbey school in late June. It was always one of the highlights of my year, and for some reason, the institute took a hiatus.
Well, it’s back, and extending its activities through the year. In fact, this Saturday, Dr. Tim Flanigan will be talking about his missionary adventure in Liberia, rebuilding medical infrastructure in Africa. The talk, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. is titled “Faith and Fear in the Ebola Crisis: Two Months Volunteering in Liberia.”
The event is free and open to the public, but the institute is requesting that people RSVP.
Friday Night Beer: Troegs Troegenator
The Troegenator Doublebock blends alcohol and flavor for an experience of sweet associations.
Translation from a Place of Disagreement
Well, look, I know my writing is often abstract and that I tend to include words that aren’t exactly of quotidian usage. When I first developed a literary voice, I was up to my vocal chords in Melville and Hawthorne and Shakespeare. Then there are all the ordinary hurdles of writing — ensuring that context is clear, crafting sentences that contain enough information but don’t barrage the reader, and so on.
Nonetheless, I continue to be amazed at the degree to which readers can find a text to say what they want or need it to say, especially when they hate the writer for political reasons. That’s the subject of my latest Tiverton Fact Check post.
Back in college, it occurred to me that, in some situations, the better somebody articulates an opposing view, the more dishonest or insane he or she appears to be to the opposition. I’ve certainly had that feeling while reading those with whom I disagree, with the frustration that every sentence seemed to be just a little bit off, just a little nudge of the wheel to keep the argument from going off the sheer cliff of actual truth.
My particular literary tics and foibles seem to allow those who disagree with me to believe that I’m weaving an elaborate illusion to hide my vicious insanity behind a reasonable facade. Some years ago, progressive commentator Tom Sgouros repeatedly insisted that I was arguing that “the rich” were leaving Rhode Island. Finally, in some comment section, somewhere, I got him to see that I was actually arguing nothing of the sort. His response, if I remember correctly, was that I’d used “stylized prose” to give the impression that that had been my point.
The confusion can snowball, too. When the person who stubbornly misreads turns around and tells other people what the writer was really saying, even when those people read for themselves, they implicitly begin with the challenge of reconciling what they expect the message to be with what it really is.
Communication on charged topics is tough. I’m certainly a long way from having it down and often reread things I’ve written and see that they could have been clearer. That said, writers should remember that it isn’t always their fault when people don’t understand.
Site Performance and Comment Notes
We’ve had increasing downtime that is probably due to the commenting system that we were using. I’m in the process of switching over to Disqus and should be able to import all comments to this date.
The Internet hordes must know what I’m up to, because the site has been touchy as I’ve worked on it, but everything should be fully operational soon.
Please note that if you’ve made a comment within the past hour or so, it may not have made the transition.
Friday Night Beer: Troegs Hop Knife Harvest Ale
Troegs’s Hop Knife Harvest Ale accomplishes what a “harvest ale” ought to accomplish: it brings to mind an agricultural past and a sense of heritage.
Friday Night Beer: Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Black IPA
Sometimes a beer just fits a dark New England evening, with heavy music on the speakers and a heavy meal on the plate.