Anecdotal second-hand reports of tattoos or piercings causing problems for employees or prospective employees are common, but Motif was unable to find any labor lawyer who had been approached on the issue: It simply has not come up, several said. This is not evidence of an absence of incidents, just that hardly anyone has waved […]
The new original play Me Three: A Guide to New Beginnings by Lenny Schwartz could charitably be described as genre-defying, swinging between farce and serious social critique, or less charitably as careening wildly from one random thing to another. What could be a passable magical-realist comedy – the advertising describes it as “darkly funny and […]
The Jewish holiday of Passover (Pesach) begins in 2019 at sunset (7:30pm in Providence) on Friday, April 19, commemorating the central defining event in Jewish history, the biblical Exodus about 3,300 years ago, during which the Jewish people escaped from slavery in Egypt and began the process of establishing a national identity on their own […]
We caught up with local cannabis activist Bobby Nuggz (fb.com/bobby.nuggz) at the March 7 grand opening of the Arctic Smoke Shop on Main Street in West Warwick. Michael Bilow (Motif): Let me get your thoughts on the cannabis situation right now. What do you think is the highest priority? Bobby Nuggz: With the legalization bill? MB: […]
I emphasize history, politics and personal experience. Books on science and pharmacology grow quickly out of date. I don’t know anything about horticulture. Science and Medicine • The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. 486 pages, 2017. […]
In TCRI’s Norman, Is That You?, Ben Chambers (Steven Taschereau), a dry cleaner from Dayton, Ohio, who is just past 50 years old, arrives at the Manhattan apartment of his 23-year-old son, Norman (Michael Capalbo), to tell him that 49-year-old Beatrice (Lisa Scotti-Johnson), Ben’s wife of 26 years and Norman’s mother, has run off to Canada […]
The diary of Anne Frank is among the most widely read historical documents of the 20th century, but its provenance is often misunderstood. There has been endless debate about why this one particular diary by one seemingly ordinary teenaged girl has become the iconic and most recognizable narrative of the Nazi Holocaust. Hundreds if not […]
Civilization itself is the product of rule of law – respect for life, equality of individuals, protection of the weak from the strong – that separates us from the alternative, the so-called “law” of the jungle that is merely complete absence of law. An absolute monarch or dictator “whose word is law” exercises naked power […]
RI has had at least two seats in the US House of Representatives since 1792, following the nation’s first census of 1790. Due to population shifts expected in the upcoming census of 2020, RI is widely anticipated to lose one. Because the US Constitution provides that each state must have at least one seat, RI would […]
The Rhode Island General Assembly, currently comprising a 38-member Senate and 75-member House, long facing criticism for undemocratic processes where decisions are made by a tiny cabal of leaders who punish dissenters by stripping them of committee assignments and their share of patronage pork, has announced plans for significant expansion. “The General Assembly should be […]