Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Former Youth Workers Sentenced for Roles in Abusing Boys at a Residential Facility on Long Island
Four former Volunteers of America youth workers are facing jail time after a judge found them guilty of abusing teenagers while working on Boston’s Long Island in 2014. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke found Silvio Depina, 40, Jalise Andrade, 37, Hermano Joseph, 28, and Ainsley LaRoche, 44, guilty of beating, sexually assaulting and threatening…
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‘Friends’ Star Inspired to Action by Friend’s Homelessness
David Schwimmer, former star of “Friends,” turned his artistic talent to telling stories that highlight the struggle of homeless people after discovering that his friend had been living on Skid Row, hiding his homelessness even from those who knew him best. Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons “I had a friend who was homeless for two…
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Workers Gain Protection Under New Law on Non-Compete Contracts
“The law makes them more expensive than they used to be,” Davis said. “It’s not something you just do anymore. For a long period of time, in Massachusetts and in other jurisdictions, it really was something that employers just did – you know, ‘You want to work here? You need to sign this.’
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Fifteen-Year-Old Activist Tells Humanity to Step Up
The temperature is soaring. In the Northeast, water tables are going crazy from all the rain we’ve had. The sun, like a malevolent eye, glows hot in a hazy sky as the world’s thermometer climbs; mercury like spinal fluid rising, rising, then bursting through our heads, our brains exploding under pressure. Humans pack the city…
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Remember the Forgotten Before it’s Too Late
As this issue hits the streets many of us will be attending the Homeless Memorial Service in Boston — Dec. 21 will mark the solemn service’s 29th year. There will be other services throughout the country over the next few days. We are once again confronted with the fact that people are dying in the…
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A Christmas dinner at the YMCA, as homelessness rises in Mass.
The staff of the Boston Business Journal helped serve food. Photo by author. It’s Christmas time at the Huntington Avenue YMCA, which hosted its annual dinner on Thursday night for its housing program guests. Twelve round tables were spread throughout the dining room, sitting at them were parents with small kids and some older folks—a…
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Gone too soon: Interfaith memorial honors homeless people who passed this year
At the 29th National Interfaith Homeless Memorial Service, people of many faiths, and people who have no faith at all, honored the lives and mourned the deaths of those who left this world behind while enduring hardships most of us can only attempt to understand. The service took place inside Church on the Hill on…
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Massachusetts has highest increase in homeless population in the country
The homeless population of Massachusetts has increased by 14 percent in the last year, according to a recent report from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to the report, there are 20,068 homeless persons in the Commonwealth this year, up from 17,565 in 2017. This was the highest increase in the country…
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Horace Seldon: Fighting Injustice, Celebrating Civil Disobedience
Horace Seldon was happily lying on his back, waving his hands and feet in the air the first time Shay Stewart-Bouley saw him. Shay was just starting out as Executive Director of Community Change, Inc., the anti-racism non-profit Horace founded in 1968, and she was at the organization’s forty-fifth anniversary party. It also happened to…
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Man indicted for deadly beating of homeless man
A Suffolk County Grand Jury has indicted 30-year-old Clifton Moore with first-degree murder in the Sept. 6 beating death of Joshua Rivera, 54, who was sleeping in a Charleston playground. According to a press release by the Suffolk County District Attorney, Moore is already locked up in Middlesex County on an unrelated assault charge. Suffolk…
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