Spare Change News

Category: Personal Essays

  • A Lost Friend

    This is the face of a friend who was homeless and died a senseless death in Fenway. When I first met Shawn, it was a warm Summers day and he’d been drinking with a couple of buddies. He started over-vocalizing his opinions on life to me. I was nice to him, despite feeling annoyed by…

  • Farewell to a Friend

    Farewell to a Friend

    Much has already been written and said about my contributions to Spare Change News over the years, and as I prepare to retire from the Board of Directors, the only thing I can think of is my friend, mentor, and fellow Spare Change News co-founder Tim Hobson. Tim passed away on August 19, just a…

  • Getting Back on the Right Track During Suicide Prevention Week

    This year, September 14 to 28 marks National Suicide Prevention Week – an event I would have missed if it was not for the acuity and understanding of a friend who experienced a suicide in his family. He recognized my suicidal feelings, talked to me about the loss of his daughter, and got me to…

  • Sun of Mercy and Kindness

    Sun of Mercy and Kindness

    By Arnie King Sun of Mercy and Kindness, Barthesda was born in New York (Jamaica – Queens) 34 years ago to a Christian father and a Muslim mother. His mother died in a car accident five years later and his father departed two years after that. It’s quite difficult to imagine any degree of mercy…

  • Book Review: “The Doubt Factory” by Paolo Bacigalupi

    “The Doubt Factory” is advertised as a book for young adults. Not only is it for young adults, but anyone who can comprehend corporate cover-ups intended to make money will absolutely be enthralled by this tense thriller. Alix and Jonah Banks attend a private school named Seitz Academy for two reasons. First, they are both…

  • Transitions

    Transitions

    Have you ever been tempted to deck someone who responds to a struggle you were having by saying “every time God closes a door, he will open a window?” Arguments about the gender of God notwithstanding, you know how useless that advice is. Say you just lost a job, or a relationship,or a place to…

  • Criminalizing the Homeless

    Criminalizing the Homeless

    As the New York Times noted in its 17 July 2014 editorial, “Shunting the Homeless From Sight,” the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down the City of Los Angeles’ ban on citizens living out of automobiles. We all should be grateful for the wise decision of the Ninth Circuit, which…

  • A Bad Trip, Part Two

    I have been homeless before, so I was kind of relieved. And I have slept in worse places than that. After two days of intense work, we had a livable house. We sat back, smoked one of the last few joints and  talked about money. Then I started working at Ernie’s Country Store in Corvallis,…

  • Love Letter to a Soldier, Part Three

    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…

  • Protest Against Government Surveillance Comes to Boston

    BOSTON, Mass.—“Hey hey, ho ho, surveillance state has got to go” rang through streets from Dewey Square to Faneuil Hall as 200 Boston-area residents held a Restore the Fourth march and rally—part of a nationwide protest against government surveillance. Clandestine National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs revealed to the world by Edward Snowden, a former…