Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Outside In
On Saturday, December 15, a group of volunteers created an unusual photography exhibit on the Palmer Street façade of 8 Brattle Street in Harvard Square. With the help of a cherry picker they pasted 35 posters, 3 by 4.5 feet each, on the brick wall, all of them portraits of homeless youth by photographer and…
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Spare Change's Editor-in-Chief Discusses the Newtown Shooting at the Huffington Post
Spare Change News’s editor-in-chief, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, has a new article up at the Huffington Post on the mass-shooting in Newtown, Connecticut: “An Elegy for Innocence.” Here’s an excerpt: This year alone in Chicago, Ill., more than 400 people have died from gun violence — many victims are children and teens. Yet there is…
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Thereabouts
826 Boston, the non profit educational group that provides free writing instruction for youth’s aged 6-18, held a ‘Books for Breakfast’ benefit at Wilmer Hale on December 4th . Author and historian David McCullough, who has received numerous writing awards—including two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book awards, the New York Public Library’s Literary Lion as…
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Timeless Soul
Nick Ashford was born in Fairfield, South Carolina, and Valarie Simpson was born in the Bronx in New York City. They met at Harlem‘s White Rock Baptist Church in 1963, and developed a musical partnership as songwriters and performers that spanned five decades. After recording unsuccessfully as a duo in the early 1960s, Ashford and…
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Born in ‘47
I cannot shut my eyes without seeing A parade of black and white passport photos, Monochrome faces of men who look uniformly old, Gaunt and unblinking in the sight of the camera man, Leaning on each other, having just dug their communal grave. Women, segregated, sunken-cheeked, unknown Outside the boundaries of memory, eyes unflinching……
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The United States of Solitary Confinement
“What happened to me in that cell tore me down. I scream at night. In my dreams, I’m back in that cell,” says Brian Nelson, who spent 12 years in solitary confinement. But that’s not how the story began. Brian Nelson was sentenced to 26 years in prison for participation in an armed robbery that…
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In Rememberance of the Trees
For fourteen days we went about our lives without heat or electricity in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. Family, friends, and our trusted Grundig radio kept us informed about the nightmares unfolding outside the fragile doors of our world. The reports that we heard about loss of life, homes, and hope were heartbreaking and difficult…
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Conference Empowers Area Women
The twentieth annual Massachusettts Conference on Women was held on December 6, 2012 from 7:30 AM to 5 PM at the World Trade Center on Summer St. behind Boston’s South Station. The event focused on educating women about their health issues; how to start or improve a business; and how they can empower themselves, their…
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Reviewing Project Soup
As one who has both eaten at served at many soup kitchens, food pantries, and shelters, I understand how humbling it can be scratching and surviving through the food pantry system. You may be in a situation that is not your fault, and you may be in a predicament where you simply need help finding…
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Being Homeless
I am a woman experiencing homelessness in a women’s shelter in Waltham called Bristol Lodge. Being homeless and living with many women is not what I would wish on my worst enemy. I dislike living with a group of women because stealing and fighting are always present. Many of the women do not know how…
Got any book recommendations?