Category: Opinion
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A Lost Soul
Last week, I lost someone very close to me. As far as I’m concerned, the streets took her, though she hadn’t been homeless in a while. Some people don’t realize how easily one can end up homeless. it can happen in the blink of an eye. It really doesn’t take much; a bad decision, a…
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The Birth of Ar Lain Ta, Part One
Everyone gets to pay the gatekeeper. In the end we pay with the only currency that we own. The gatekeeper’s desires are simple. All he wants is all we’ve got. They call me the Troll. I’m a gatekeeper of sorts, and I have my own kingdom. Of course, I have to follow the rules too.…
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A Basic Human Right
On January 26, a homeless man was brutally assaulted in Allston, according to a female eyewitness who threw herself in front of the man to protect him. The man, Michael Hudson, was being brutally beaten; one of his attackers was actually slamming his head into the sidewalk. Police arrested two men who grew up together…
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The Love of Nadia Chance, Part Two
Never before in my life have I seen anyone without that indent on the lip. “May I come in and sit? I just need to talk to someone.” I hadn’t realized that Nadia was with me at the door. She reaches out and takes his hand. He almost smiles as she guides him to a…
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Robbing Peter
“Really?” That’s my standard reaction when I hear or see things that are disturbingly stupid these days. It was how I reacted when I found out that Bread and Jams would be closing its doors. For those of you who don’t know about Bread and Jams, it is a drop-in center that has served the…
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The Love of Nadia Chance, Part One
It begins again, the voices of the women singing in the background as the morphine kicks in. I can feel the first wave now. The troll is in the kitchen with Ron de Veux. There is a knock at the door of his subterranean apartment. The evening has been particularly disturbing. I have been nursing…
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Another Fare Increase?!
Once again boys and girls, the MBTA is getting ready to fleece us. On July 1, prices will go up 10 cents on both buses and subways, monthly passes will go from $70 to $75 and commuter rail passes will go from $5 to $17 depending on the distance. Unlike the last fare hikes two…
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Love Letter to a Soldier, Part Three
We are connected by fiber-optic cables, technological threads that crisscross the world. Over 4,200 kilometers of fiber optics exist in Afghanistan, and you are there, a mere 11,297 kilometers away from me. Messages of hope, frustration and the mundanities of everyday life—both in Arlington, Virginia and there in Kabul, Afghanistan—are transmitted over thousands and thousands…
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The Vendor
Upon reading “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” by James Agee, the thought struck me that you, the reader, have truly so little understanding of the people you purchase this paper, SPARE CHANGE NEWS, from. We vendors are standing outside in frigid weather, hot weather, rainy weather, stormy weather, dancing back and forth to keep…
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Behind the Curtain
In the last issue of SPARE CHANGE NEWS, there was a story of a woman, Fachon Fetters, who was being evicted from her home by Heading Home, the program that provided her with housing (“Evicted with Six Months to Live”). Apparently, Fetters, who has breast cancer, was being evicted at the behest of her seemingly…