Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
A Dishonor to All of Us
Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. A time for thinking of ice cream, school vacation, and so on. It’s also a time to honor our veterans, our heroes, those that made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us all free. But not all of our vets who survived the wars they fought are so honored;…
-
Nina Simone
Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina during the Great Depression. Simone’s mother, Mary Kate Waymon, was a Methodist minister and housekeeper and her father, John Divine Waymon, worked as a handyman and part-time minister. At three years old, Eunice displayed musical talent by playing the piano by ear. At seven,…
-
First-Time Documentarian Duo Embrace Nepal
A typical novice documentarian might start with a local issue for their first big film, but for Augusta Rose and Mary Frances White, it wasn’t enough. It was a story in eastern Nepal on the edges of Mount Everest that caught their eye. Rose and White, graduates of Fitchburg State University in 2012, spent the…
-
A Unicorn of Color Mourns the Day After the Boston Marathon
The day after the Boston Marathon my newsfeed is full of red and pink equal signs next to posts from national press about the bombing. In a way, these are the same love: government-sponsored ways of expressing our empathy. Boston is a rallying point for independence. The marathon is a rallying point for independence.…
-
Boston Love
The randomness of the streets laid out as they grew, organically, in this Neighborhood City. Home of the Midnight Ride; small enough to bike anywhere; the Walkable City. And first in North America: the T, where every language is spoken, and which originally had Rapid in it’s name–until a rider sued on the grounds that…
-
NOS4A2: A Review
Like father, like son, some people say. Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. As a matter of fact, this apple is even sweeter if you like your books tinged with tales of horror and love. Joe Hill slips you quickly into his world like slipping a…
-
What Color Is Terror?
Watching professional broadcast journalists attempt to compete with social media hobbyists for any nugget of information during last week’s manhunt for suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, many us felt a familiar dread. We know, either intuitively, through direct experience or via professional training, that media have a collective power to help diffuse or fuel…
-
Terror, Torture, and Resistance
When I heard about the Boston Marathon bombings, I’d just finished reading Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel’s harrowing op-ed in the New York Times. Moqbel has been on hunger strike since February to protest his indefinite imprisonment, without trial, at the United States’ detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to the U.S. military, ninety-nine…
-
Brian Christopher: The Aftermath of Celebrity
When Brian Christopher walked into the New England Center for Homeless Veterans in early December 2010, he had only one thought on his mind: making himself whole again. The then 49-year-old Navy veteran, who had long struggled with emotional issues as well as alcoholism, had sought out the shelter in order to heal and finally…
-
LGBT Undocumented Immigrants
On Monday, April 15, ten South Floridian activists gathered for a press conference in front of Senator Mark Rubio’s (R-Fla.) office to ask him to consider LGBT concerns in the immigration reform package set to release the next day. The protest included representatives of the grassroots group GetEQUAL and members of the Florida Immigration Coalition,…
Got any book recommendations?