Category: Opinion
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After the Bombings, We Need Justice . . . and Democracy
Like everyone else in the Boston area, the Open Media Boston staff is still numb with shock at the news that a vicious explosive attack was perpetrated by forces unknown against innocent civilians at the Boston Marathon just last week. Three people are dead as of this writing — one of them an eight-year-old boy.…
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Our Chemical Romance
There are 85,000 synthetic chemicals in our midst, introduced into the environment since the Second World War. Over 216 everyday chemicals have proven correlations to breast cancer, and yet only 7% of the 3,000 in high production have been tested for detrimental effect. It is hard to comprehend a process where a blanket tsunami of…
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Worlds Apart
It’s a complicated thing to shift base from where you have stayed all your life and move to a foreign country to start life over, anew and clueless. Except, I wasn’t really starting over when I moved to the United States in August, 2011. I couldn’t see it back then, as the excitement of independence…
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Keeping the Hope Alive through Trauma
The following series of essays have been written while teaching ESL classes to adult students from all corners of the world (this writing exercise began in late January, and continues to be a part of my classes). Each morning, I required the first class – which was what inspired this project – to answer one…
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Thinking Green
Massachus’ians are thinkers. There is scant shortage of intellectual pursuit in this state; Cambridge and Boston especially are visibly abuzz with the life of the mind, in all its variety of bloom. So it is all the more notable that the Northeastern CannaBusiness Symposium, held Saturday March 16th in downtown Boston by the National Cannabis…
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The Freedom of Love
The following series of essays have been written while teaching ESL classes to adult students from all corners of the world (this writing exercise began last month, and continues to be a part of my classes). Each morning, the first class – that began this project – was required to answer one of two questions.…
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Living Beyond Class
We are living in a time of seemingly impenetrable race and class division. I say “seemingly” because we have seen what may have been perceived to be impossible made possible in that a surplus of minorities have gained social and economic advancement because of pioneers in political and social activism. One such pioneer is Betsy…
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Playing the Feminist Card
A cat token voted into the game of Monopoly is very cool—but Parker Bros. still got trumped, because the hottest deal in game design now is the newly minted Feminist Playing Cards. These decks are portable, playable art collections, encompassing both illustrative and musical adventures. A discussion of Missy Elliott’s efforts on behalf of strays,…
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The Changing Role of Haitian-American Women
Haitian Women, in Haiti, are terribly oppressed, both economically and psychologically. I know this first hand having grown up with five women in Haiti and by often observing their delicate task of navigating in a sea of sharks: the male oppressors who limit them to being subservient and objectified. But, as Bob Dylan sings, “The…
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Free Will Versus Destiny
The following series of essays have been written while teaching ESL (English as a second Language) classes to adult students from all corners of the world (this writing exercise began last month, and continues to be a part of my classes). Each morning, the first class – that began this project – was required to…