Fear about increasingly frequent points of terrorism across the United States is made worse by the sense that people in power and in the news media will neither protect us from it nor allow us to protect ourselves.
John Carr’s preview of Pope Francis’s message when he visits the United States this fall raises questions about the balance of the individual with the government in the eyes of the Church.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of the Providence Diocese, Thomas Tobin, stands out in America for his defense of principles articulated in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In his keynote address on Pope Francis, Cardinal Sean O’Malley makes the author wonder whether church leaders understand how much the West needs to be evangelized, and how differently Westerners will hear the messages of the pope.
Our modern ignorance of history and lack of graciousness toward those with whom we differ is undermining our character as Americans and setting us up for dangerous times.
Mark Steyn is right about the difficulty of swimming against the tide, but these waves are false, and we need to rebuild the Constitutional and social barriers that have kept us a free and diverse nation.
As elected officials in Woonsocket battle over the budget process and the tax rate, Arthur Christopher Shaper reminds us of the dependence of city residents on welfare programs.
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat expects divisions within the Roman Catholic Church to avoid coming to a head for many decades, but it will depend on Pope Francis’s understanding of his own role in the world and on whether Catholic progressives follow the path of American progressives in pushing fundamental transformation.
The great disagreement of our times is whether rights and dignity are innate, affirmed by a higher power, or are conceived by the individual and made real by the affirmation of the government.
David Brooks encourages traditionalists to focus on the mission of helping society but overlooks the probability that the Left will not let that happen.
Perhaps the single most destructive aspect of the Supreme Court’s set of rulings last week is the clear evidence that the culture of our ruling elite makes societal survival a secondary consideration (if that).
An interreligious panel on Pope Francis’s relationship with those of other faiths raises questions of religion’s relationship with politics, which returns us to the question of whether Francis has the world right.
Events in America suggest dark times for liberty and true diversity. But we can always rebuild, starting at the bottom.
Looking at current events, it’s tempting to be discouraged, but in the trials of a church in Charleston we can find inspiration to wipe discouragement away.
Another incident during the House debate over the budget, this one involving an amendment that would have directed resources to an investigation of 38 Studios, strengthens the impression that representative democracy is dead at the State House.
Professor Anna Bonta Moreland’s talk on “El Papa Francisco es Argentino” set some cultural context for the pope and raises questions about the risks of his worldview.
Alexander Mikulich closes out the 2013 Portsmouth Institute conference.
Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin closes out the second day of the 2013 Portsmouth Institute conference.
Kevin O’Brien, of Theater of the Word Production, performs a lecture in the persona of Orestes Brownson.
Jim Forest speaks on Dorothy Day on day 2 of the 2013 Portsmouth Institute Conference
Samuel Casey Carter, of the Faith in the Future Foundation, begins day 2 of the 2013 Portsmouth Institute conference.
Writer George Weigel closes out day 1 of the 2013 Portsmouth Institute conference.
Last night’s record-breakingly short budget debate marked the final end of Rhode Island’s period of representative democracy and the beginning of the last stage of its decline.
Senator Whitehouse’s notion of expanding the application of RICO suits might point the weapon in the wrong direction.
Unfortunately, some members of the General Assembly want to reinforce the marginalization of democratic control over public services that is sadly acceptable to both union leadership and to Rhode Island’s insider and managerial elites, via a pair of bills that would deny elected municipal authorities the power to set policies concerning platoon structure and overtime policy. Instead of making decisions, civil authorities would be reduced to asking for deals when trying to exercise basic command authority in these major areas. Try to imagine a system like this working further down the chain-of-command where, for example, a captain has to make a deal with members of his platoon when he wants something significant done. It wouldn’t work very well.
In Rhode Island parlance, this is frequently labeled as an issue of “management rights”, but that is an overly business-bourgeois conceptualization of the problem, and fails to capture the true magnitude of what is at stake. The real issue is whether we are a society where basic democratic control is exercised over the government chain-of-command or we are something else and something worse.
Full post below the fold….
A passage from Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby illustrates that modern problems with representative democracy are not so modern, yet we’ve invested the system with so much more power and reach since then.
While we accept that teacher unions advocate to extremes for their members and that school committee’s strive to balance interests, parents or others who try to push just a little bit harder in the children’s direction are quickly denounced.
A reporter in search of racial division in Rhode Island mainly succeeds in encouraging it.
The destruction of the nuclear family is like a slow-motion nuclear bomb destroying the ability of our society to move people from destitution to success.
[The following was received via e-mail this afternoon.]
Concerned Citizen Seeks to Testify about Unfairness of Pension Settlement to Taxpayers at Court Hearing Tuesday, Schedules Press Conference to Explain Request to the Public
Concerned citizen Dr. William J. Murphy will hold a press conference in front of the Frank Licht Judicial Complex at 250 Benefit Street in Providence at 4:30 PM on Tuesday, May 26, 2015 to explain to the public the reasons for his request to testify about the unfairness of the pension settlement to taxpayers at the ongoing fairness hearings in Superior Court. Dr. Murphy will deliver a statement emphasizing that the terms of the settlement itself as well as the impropriety of the court-supervised secret negotiation process that produced it have significantly harmed the financial welfare of taxpayers, violated the political rights of citizens, and severely damaged the public interest.
(EAST PROVIDENCE, RI – May 25, 2015) – Dr. William J. Murphy, a concerned resident of East Providence, has petitioned the Rhode Island Superior Court to testify at the ongoing pension settlement fairness hearing Tuesday. He held a press conference at Superior Court in Providence on Tuesday to issue a statement explaining the reasons for his request.
Dr. Murphy opened his remarks by saying that, “The pension settlement is grossly unfair to good citizens of Rhode Island because it adds over $290 million to the unfunded pension debt that the state’s already overburdened taxpayers cannot afford. Even more troubling, the terms of the settlement itself as well as everything about the nature of the process itself fail to demonstrate appropriate sensitivity to the economic hardships this increased tax burden would impose on elderly citizens living on fixed incomes as well as low-income younger taxpayers and their families who remain deprived of adequate economic opportunities in part because of the unaffordable state pension system, the high rates of taxation imposed to feed it, and the resulting negative consequences for the Ocean State’s economic competitiveness.