Spare Change News

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Letter From the Editor

    For twenty years, we have published Spare Change News with limited money and staffing. In that time, we have published over 500 issues and have never missed an issue. Spare Change News is the nation’s oldest continuous street paper. SCN pioneered the homeless writer and leader model that has been emulated by papers throughout the…

  • Diversity & the Future of Boston

    She’s spent her career helping organize voters in poor urban neighborhoods, working to reduce youth incarceration, and empowering underserved communities. Now, she’s aiming to make Boston a more fun, business friendly city. Malia Lazu, Director of the newly formed Future Boston Alliance, aims to improve Boston’s image by luring and keeping creative industries in the…

  • American Manhood

    James Baldwin has taught me a lot about being a man. More specifically he taught me how to be a man who is whole. This has not come without great pain, sacrifice and loss. Along the way to wholeness the stupefying effects of my attempt to live into the American idea of masculinity, which by…

  • Dispatches from the DNC

    Downtown Charlotte is buzzing with excitement as delegates, media outlets, and big-name politicos are beginning to make their way to large caucus meetings and other events that are presently occurring prior to the official kick-off of the big events at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. The anticipation that is increasingly building up partly signals the…

  • The Welfare Vote

    In early August, I received a voter registration letter and application from the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA). I remarked that DTA was doing their job — perhaps because of a voting rights lawsuit brought against the agency in December of 2011. The lawsuit was brought by NY-based independent think-tank, Demos, and New England United…

  • A Controlled Dangerous Substance Act (Part Four)

    Marc D. Goldfinger Spare Change News Start at the beginning with A Controlled Dangerous Substance Act Part I (A lot has happened in our story. Everyone has been arrested on a set-up. Dean set up his pharmacist for the police, and now they’ve let Dean go. He went back to the pharmacy, bought 100 morphine…

  • Racism: A Personal Meditation

    Racism has been a constant companion all of my life. I, first, met him in the first grade in Richmond, Kentucky. During this tender time, I had developed a crush—or whatever 6 and 7 year olds call it—on a girl in my class who happened white. Somehow, my teacher, who was white as well, caught…

  • Race & Liberalism

    “Race” as an idea barely existed before the Enlightenment and the onset of modernity in the West. Today, many dismiss the race-concept as an illusion, arguing that “there is no such thing as race;” or in more universalist terms, “there is only one race: the human race.” Yet race continues to demarcate and stratify all…

  • Occupy Homelessness

    Xander is always reaching out to people, so it wasn’t surprising to see him talking to police officers outside the Bank of America building on one of the first nights those sidewalks were occupied. In planning for the start of Occupy San Francisco (then known as Occupy Financial District San Francisco), organizers wondered whether the…

  • Roxbury's Prophet: Rap Phenom, Moufy Rhymes with Gitty Eloquence and Tender Rage

    To cite the Urban Dictionary again, the first definition for Boston is, “A city that really feels like a town full of business people during the day and college kids at night.” Not to sound like a snob, but this is my impression exactly, although I only moved here recently. Having lived for many years…

Got any book recommendations?

Get In Touch