Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Turning Up the Heat on Coal Power in Massachusetts
SOMERSET, Mass.—Henry David Thoreau, that famous son of Massachusetts, famously wrote, “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” Climate activists across the commonwealth have been taking those words to heart. On 7 January 2013,…
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Manning Found Not Guilty of Aiding the Enemy, Guilty on 19 Other Counts
FORT MEADE, Md.—Pfc. Bradley Manning has been found not guilty of “aiding the enemy” by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified national security documents that implicate the United States in war crimes to WikiLeaks in a verdict announced Tuesday by Judge Col. Denise Lind at a military base in Fort Meade, Maryland. He has been…
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The Costs of Coal
Camilo Viviero grew up in Somerset, Mass., in the shadow of two coal-fired power plants. “For years growing up, you would hear around midnight this air horn. That’s when they would send out the plumes of toxins. In the middle of the night, while we were sleeping,” he says. One of those plants was decommissioned…
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State Lawmakers Hear Testimony on Bill for Unaccompanied Homeless Youth
BOSTON, Mass.—On 16 June 2012, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities held a hearing for House Bill 135, “An Act Providing Housing and Support Services to Unaccompanied Homeless Youth.” Co-sponsored by state senators James O’Day and Katherine Clark, the bill seeks to improve on the resources available to homeless youth…
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Raise Up Massachusetts Takes the Minimum Wage Fight to a New Level
BOSTON, Mass.—Massachusetts Treasurer Steve Grossman spoke to a crowd of 200 at a recent rally for an increased minimum wage and earned sick time. “This morning, a million people in the commonwealth woke up and didn’t have a single day of earned sick time. Some of my friends in the business community say, ‘We can’t…
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The Double Tragedy of the Trayvon Martin Case
The “not guilty” verdict made the Trayvon Martin case a double tragedy. Beyond the courtroom theatrics and the legalistic maneuvers within the past couple of weeks, the fact remains that an unarmed black teenager was proactively pursued and murdered and no one will be held accountable for this tragedy. Of course this case was about…
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Tales from the Curb: An American Tragedy
When I heard that George Zimmerman had been found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin, I just shook my head; I was disappointed, but not surprised. The prosecution dropped the ball. Most of their own witnesses blew up in their faces. It was obvious that Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel was not properly prepared. She was…
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Where The Highways End
Way back, in the way back of the late, late 1800s, the first automobiles rolled down the dirt roads. The age of the combustion engine that took us places had been birthed. If we knew now what we didn’t know then, would we have proceeded to build the highways and byways of the rough beast?…
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Street People
Crowds at dusk with better weather here at “The Club, Last Rainbow” some Friday night when out of town folks with lighter arms on shirtsleeve notice taste the smoke among the barbeques in fires of hot stoves by skinny rows of street people listening to my alto sax on the loudspeaker along the waterfront breaking…
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Unpacking Occupy
“The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement” by David Graeber Spiegel and Grau, 352 pp., $26 (hardcover) Occupy Wall Street ruled the airwaves and imagination of America for about six weeks before its bases of operation were raided by federally co-ordinated government forces. How did it rise to prominence so fast, achieve more…
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