Michael Bilow


FabNewport: “Make Your Life”

Education comes in many different forms and not every student learns best in a classroom setting, according to Steven Heath, executive director of FabNewport, a private non-profit organization that seeks to bring the “maker culture” to youth. “We are born to learn. If you put a 2-year-old on the floor you don’t have to teach […]

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News Analysis: Was that a Rhode Island Political Revolution or Are You Just Unhappy to See Me?

In probably the most emphatic repudiation of the status quo by voters since the electoral rout that ended the reign of Democrat Party chairman and Senate majority leader Rocco A. Quattrocchi in 1983, six of the 18 General Assembly incumbents facing 2016 primary challenges, all Democrats, were defeated by insurgent newcomers. This should terrify the […]

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Beowulf: Hard-Rocking English Version of “The Greatest American Hero”

Trinity Rep’s production of Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage is a lot more fun than the average high school English class, and there won’t be a quiz afterward. The catchy rock-opera style of the book and lyrics by Jason Craig and music by Dave Malloy is a very modern take on an epic poem […]

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Baden-Powell Service Association: Traditional Scouting for Everyone

Young people interested in traditional scouting that emphasizes outdoor activities and interaction with nature had few opportunities if they felt excluded by policy from more widely known scouting organizations. The Baden-Powell Service Association (BPSA) seeks to remedy that by opening its membership without discrimination on the basis of religious views, sexual orientation or gender, aiming […]

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GMOs: Guide for the Perplexed

[See main article: motifri.com/gmofood] Surprisingly, the first and hardest problem of talking about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is defining them. Advanced biotechnology since the 1990s makes possible direct modification of cellular genetic material through genetic engineering, but the results are distinguishable only by their precision from traditional breeding techniques used for millennia with plants and […]

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GMO Food: Complicated Questions but No Simple Answers

[See sidebar: motifri.com/gmoguide] Food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) made by genetic engineering (GE) has been in the news recently following the May release of results from a major study conducted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS), a private non-profit corporation funded entirely by the federal government and originally chartered by […]

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Providence Playcorps: Free Pop-Up Adventure Playgrounds for Kids

Children are resilient; in the bombed-out rubble of Europe after World War II, children found ways to do amidst the ruins what they were naturally inclined to do – play. It has been indisputably known for decades that the single most important way children learn about the world around them is through play, but what […]

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Jerusalem: There Were Giants in the Earth in Those Days

The decline and fall of a civilized society from ancient greatness to modern mediocrity has been the subject of much of British literature for centuries, ranging from William Blake and Lord Byron to Rudyard Kipling and J.R.R. Tolkien. Jerusalem takes place entirely at the ramshackle caravan abode of Byronic anti-hero “Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron” (David Tessier) […]

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