Referendum ballot questions rarely fail voter approval in Rhode Island, and they rarely attract much controversy or attention. Unlike many other states with initiative provisions that have allowed voters to bypass their legislatures to, for example, legalize recreational use of cannabis, RI has no mechanism for circumventing the General Assembly. As a result, almost all […]
The world loves a cartoon baddie, and in Donald Trump we’ve got a villain straight out of “Scooby Doo.” But in either two or six years, we will say goodbye to a man who has gifted more to political satire than George W Bush, and that will be that. But it won’t, because in Trump […]
We, the attorneys of the National Lawyers Guild of Rhode Island, strongly condemn confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. In addition to the extensive list of topics on which we disagree vehemently with this nominee (money in politics, civil rights, women’s rights, gun rights, etc.), there is increasing and credible […]
In the Worst Way It is quite embarrassing to admit, but P&J turned off the televised Senate Judicial Committee’s flamboyant hearings this week. Brett Kavanaugh is a mildly qualified GOP arse-licker designated to be a right wing plant in the Supreme Court. But P&J fear Kavanaugh as much as we did current Supreme Court Chief Justice John […]
I Don’t Wanna Play In the biggest shocker of the year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ruled out a meeting with president Donald Trump when the two world leaders attended the recent United Nations General Assembly session in New York. Citing irreconcilable differences, Mr. Rouhani explained “Mr. Trump is a Cincinnati Bengals fan, whereas I support […]
This story is not a new one. Young people are drifting from the political system, and the establishment is blindly scrambling to stop the decay. But the response from the mainstream frequently leans toward patronizing and slander rather than leveling and understanding. All that is a symptomatic consequence of a much larger, scarier truth. In […]
Our cover artistically renders bullet holes as if this magazine has been shot through with a gun, motivated by the fatal but accidental shooting of William Parsons, a 15 year-old Central High School student who was waiting to be picked up outside another nearby city high school, the Providence Career and Technical Academy. By all […]
“Did you hear about the shooting down the street from your school?” My heart dropped. A waitress at my job broke the news to me that a few streets over from my school, The Met High School, another shooting took place after school hours. I was shocked; I still am actually. Not only was this […]
Last place aversion is the heuristic bias in which people support measures that ensure they don’t fall to last place, even if that means acting against the greater good and their own best interests. It happens when uncomfortable is confused with unsafe. Americans’ growing inability to differentiate between real danger and discomfort is an invasive cancer […]
After the recent shooting of William Parsons, Motif‘s writers had a lot to say about gun violence in our state. Check it out and send us your thoughts. Jonathan Jacobs explains his belief that guns are just part of our culture: Opinion: If You See Something, Say Something Staff writer Mike Bilow is Team Motif‘s dissenting […]