Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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In The Line Of Fire
I knew Dominic Cinelli. You must have read his name at least a dozen times since Christmas weekend. He’s the guy who killed John “Jack” Macguire, a Woburn police officer, age 60, a good cop. I never thought I’d feel sorry for a police officer, but my heart goes out to Officer Macguire and his…
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Conference for women celebrates progress, and calls for action
American universities and office parks look a lot different than they did 50 years ago. The efforts to recruit women into higher education have paid off so much that the majority of college students are now female. With men taking on greater childcare responsibilities, and technology increasing women’s options for balancing a family and a…
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Q&A with homeless film-maker Eric "Protein" Moseley
Eric “Protein” Moseley has been critically acclaimed in Los Angeles as the nation’s first homeless filmmaker to show a documentary on opposite coasts: once in South Carolina and once in California. Moseley was born in Detroit, but has also lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Kingstree, Houston, Tallahassee, New Orleans, Miami, New York, Columbia…
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Making an impact: Cambridge residents and students help build school in Cambodia
A group of Cambridge public school students, teachers, parents, businesses and residents raised $24,000 between October 2007 and June 2008 to build a school in rural Cambodia. The February 2010 dedication of the Cambridge Schools in Cambodia Project School in rural Kauk Rovieng marked the end of three years of fundraising and planning. The school…
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Ringing in the New Year: new opportunities for new beginnings
All of the refreshing possibilities inherent in exciting new beginnings apply to relocating to a new community. Relocation is rarely a seamless and easy adjustment to make; and frequently it isn’t initiated by choice. Job losses or reassignments, health status changes, widowhood, divorce and other life-altering events may prod us into making major lifestyle revisions…
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Horizons for Homeless Children twelfth annual women’s breakfast
There turn out to have been just under a thousand attendees at the twelfth annual Women’s Breakfast to benefit Horizons for Homeless Children, but the more common estimate, at least during the event, was “tons.” Tons of people braved the rain and squeezed around tons of tables at the Westin Copley’s America Ballroom, a gilded…
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Project 50/50: The Beginning
On the first day of the New Year in 2010, I climbed up into an old pickup truck that I named Bubba, with my dog Zuzu in the passenger seat. I began a mission to spend one week in every US state helping the poor and hungry who live on our American streets. I was…
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2010 Holiday Appeal Concluded – Success!
In this midst of a Boston winter, we at Spare Change are proud to express warm and impassioned thanks to all of you who contributed to making our 2010 Holiday Appeal a resounding success. To date, we have raised over $18,000 through fundraising associated with the appeal, which will provide for approximately 1/8th of our…
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My Spare Change News story
It was March, 1993. I don’t remember the precise date. My wife and I were homeless and strung out on heroin, getting sick (withdrawal), and out of money. I was at Porter Square shaking a cup and trying to come up with an idea so we could get fix money to, “get well.” My wife,…
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One Morning At The Mall
The Chestnut Hill Mall was a comfortable temperature, I noted, as three women passed me, power-walking the length of the mall. They’d reach the end, turn about, and come back, over and over again. As I watched them I noticed a man carrying two battered plastic garbage bags enter the mall. His clothing was somewhat…
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