Category: Opinion
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Women & Children Last
There are times when I can’t believe what I’m hearing or seeing. I watched the news reports in absolute disgust as Oscar Pistorius, the disabled athlete who’d won everyone’s heart during the Olympics last summer, received bail after allegedly killing his girlfriend. He killed her on Valentine’s Day, no less, in their home in South…
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Soliloquy to America
“There are two ways of spreading the light, / To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”—Edith Wharton I’d like to shed some “light” on a few things I’ve had on my mind for quite a long time. I am first and foremost a poet. A poet speaks through the mouth of truth…
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Gun Control At Home & Abroad
There has been a lot of attention given to gun violence since the day Adam Lanza armed himself with hundreds of bullets and took the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. This tragic story has gotten the attention of corporate media, the nation, and from a President who hails from…
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To Ariel Aluzariaro
We never met. But I saw you. Your grandmother, my friend Jennifer, showed me your picture on her phone. Later, when she showed me the picture again, I smiled and let her know that she didn’t need proof—I’d seen the photo. She got embarrassed, in the manner of a grandmother who was so foolishly, big-heartedly…
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How the Fiscal Cliff Deal Will Impact Homelessness
On January 1, 2013, Congress passed a bipartisan bill called the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. ATRA eliminates or postpones many aspects of the so-called “fiscal cliff.” President Barack Obama signed the bill on January 2. The fiscal cliff is a term for the expiration of several federal tax cuts and the Budget Control…
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Black Boys Under the Gun
A day after the Thanksgiving holiday, 17-year-old Jordan Russell Davis was shot by a 45-year-old assailant, Michael David Dunn. Dunn claims that he unloaded his gun into a vehicle full of teens in “self-defense” after stopping the youths to order them to turn their music down. Davis was Black. Dunn is White. Lest the public too…
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Argo and the Roots of U.S.-Iran Tensions
News in November 1979 that U.S. diplomats had been taken hostage in Tehran shocked the United States. Students stormed the U.S. embassy, blindfolding 52 Americans and threatening them at gunpoint. The hostages, held captive for 444 days, immediately became the nation’s top news story and dogged President Jimmy Carter’s unsuccessful re-election campaign. Argo traces the…
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Malia Lazu: Executive Director, Future Boston Alliance
Age: 35 Location: Originally from Honolulu HI and now in Roxbury. How Martin Luther King Jr. Inspired You: I think the strategy of his movement allowed America to have a conversation about race. He was really able to, because of his love of reconciliation and wanting to wrestle with loving your enemy, he was able…
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Ten Minutes for Human Rights
Oppression, violence, war. These forces surround and blight all. But amidst the loss and suffering caused to people and communities from these afflictions, a dream of peace is a beacon that can illuminate the darkest of nights. And, as the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. timelessly continues to demonstrate with grace and reason, it…
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Bob Hurlbut: Executive Director, Cambridge Community Foundation
Age: 76 Location: Cambridge How Marin Luther King Jr. Inspired You: Before I did the foundation for twenty years, I was the headmaster of Parks School in Brookline. And before that, teacher at Newton High School. During those early years as a teacher and school head, I was very involved in civil rights activities, including…