Category: Columns
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Election Issues: Student Loans
Over the next few months, I will explain the finance and economic issues that are going to be important in the upcoming presidential election. In this issue, we will look at student loans, which are a very important issue. College tuition has become increasingly expensive and many students and their families are finding that the…
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Moving Through Time
The world has changed so much since I was born. Sometimes it feels as if there’s an evil force moving against us to keep us from improving the world. We know better but we act as if we don’t. This is the hottest year on record so far since we’ve been keeping time. We used…
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My Spare Change Experience
My name is Pat Dixon, and I’ve been selling Spare Change News since 2001. I first became interested in SCN after I saw one of my neighbors selling the paper in Harvard Square. His name was Bill and he said I should sign up as well. He’s since passed away, and I now sell in…
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Suboxone: A Positive Alternative to Heroin Addiction
Addiction is a mental illness that has been misconstrued and stereotyped, especially since the early 1900s when it was criminalized. Addicts are often represented as bad people rather than sick people. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act was passed into law, immediately criminalizing people suffering from substance use disorder. Ironically, the Bayer company, famous for…
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The Band Is Still Playing On: Part 1
Yes, I’m aware that my title for this column is a play on the words of the title to a book and movie about the AIDS crisis, “And the Band Played On.” That film was about how, as hundreds of people became infected with the deadly virus, our federal government pretty much sat on its…
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Writing for SCN: A Vendor’s Perspective
The 2008 economic recession cost me my newspaper distributor job at Boston Now and opened up new opportunities for me at Spare Change News. After selling Spare Change News for two weeks, I answered a posting by then-editor Emily Johnson stating that she was looking for someone to write a story on community gardening. I…
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4,000 Miles Later: Discovering vulnerability and truth while running across the country.
People say habits are formed in 21 days. I say lessons are learned in 49. At least, that was the case for me this summer as I ran across the country with a group of 22 young adults raising money and awareness for young adult cancer. The opportunity to run for the Ulman Cancer Fund’s…
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“Underground Airlines” by Ben H. Winters: A Book Review
Mulholland Books/Little Brown & Company, Hachette Book Group; Goldsboro Books, UK Ltd. Edition S & N. Imagine if President Lincoln was shot before the Civil War took place and then, because of that and the greed of humankind, the Civil War never happened. If you were black and born into a slave state, there would…
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Silence
The party conventions are over and the candidates have been chosen (not the greatest of choices) and we now move on to the campaigns, the debates, the name calling and those annoying TV ads for the next three-and-a-half months. But wait: hear that silence, boys and girls? Crickets chirping? That, my friends, is the sound…
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How to avoid banking fees
For over a century, everyone has wanted a safe and easy place to store their money. The only problem is that in recent years, banks have decided to make their profits by charging customers fees for anything they can possibly imagine. We will look at some of the most common fees and how to avoid…