Category: Opinion
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What’s Really Going on in Bahrain: An Interview with Activist Ala’a Shehabi
Ala’a Shehabi is not a woman to be trifled with. Born in the U.K., she earned a Ph.D. from Imperial College London and has worked for prestigious institutions like Rand Europe and the Bahrain Institute for Banking and Finance. At the same time, Shehabi has been active in Bahrain’s ongoing uprising. She was at Pearl…
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Bahrain Shows Two Sides of Ambitious Economic Development
MANAMA, Bahrain—”The name ‘Bahrain’ means ‘two seas,’” our tour guide explained as we walked away from the old Portuguese fort on the outskirts of Manama. “There’s the saltwater sea that surrounds Bahrain. Then there’s the fresh water that bubbles up in the middle of the sea to our north.” The fort itself is breathtaking, set…
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From Local Author to Homelessness and Back Again
I never thought I would end up a homeless veteran. By society’s standards, I did all the right things; I joined the Army, graduated college, and published my first children’s book, The Pet Mouse, on Amazon.com. But time and circumstance can change anyone’s life. In 2009, my life began its unraveling descent into homelessness. Earlier…
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Ev’olutions
In advance of a new release frommultiple awards winning playwright and author Eve Ensler, I attended a production of her seminal work “The Vagina Monologues.” Produced by Cambridge Cooperative at the Central Square YMCA, the play was staged as a V-Day benefit for non-profit My Life, My Choice (MLMC). Created in 1998, V-Day is an…
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You and Your Family Are Guinea Pigs for the Chemical Corporations
A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why…
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Time for Big Green to Go Fossil Free
The movement demanding that public interest institutions divest their holdings from fossil fuels is on a serious roll. At last count, there were active divestment campaigns on 305 campuses and in more than 100 US cities and states. The demand has spread to Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Britain. And though officially launched just six…
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Moral Education
Moral Education By Cryn Johannsen Every Sunday when she was a little girl, she would go to a big Gothic church with her parents and her older, increasingly rebellious brother. With her hair covered in bows and her body clothed in neat little dresses – white ones in the summertime and purple ones in the…
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Making "Patient Protection" Essential in Obamacare
For decades, Americans have demanded a healthcare system that provides lifelong access to affordable care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act looked to be a huge step in that direction. However, recently issued regulations for implementing healthcare reform are threatening to undermine the Act’s fundamental goal of achieving health equity — especially for marginalized…
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What Color Is Terror?
Watching professional broadcast journalists attempt to compete with social media hobbyists for any nugget of information during last week’s manhunt for suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, many us felt a familiar dread. We know, either intuitively, through direct experience or via professional training, that media have a collective power to help diffuse or fuel…
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Terror, Torture, and Resistance
When I heard about the Boston Marathon bombings, I’d just finished reading Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel’s harrowing op-ed in the New York Times. Moqbel has been on hunger strike since February to protest his indefinite imprisonment, without trial, at the United States’ detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to the U.S. military, ninety-nine…