Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Walsh Explores Mass Litigation Against Pharmaceutical Companies for Role in Opioid Crisis
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced Monday, Jan. 22 that his office is considering mass tort litigation against several pharmaceutical companies for their role in the ongoing opioid crisis affecting the city and the United States as a whole. The potential move follows the lead of other Massachusetts municipalities — such as Quincy and Greenfield —…
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Cold Weather, Colder Reality
Quincy COPE has been serving food and love at South Station for years with little or no complaints, that is until now. Apparently one of the Station’s security guards probably with nothing better to do approached Suzanne Featherstone (who is seen by many as the leader of the Quincy contingent) and the other volunteers and…
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Mayor Walsh and hundreds of volunteers take to streets for 2018 point-in-time count
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, left, and Emergency Shelter Commission director Jim Greene, right, speak to a recently housed young woman. On Wednesday night, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh led the annual homeless census, joining hundreds of volunteers who combed through the city to tally the homeless population. It was his fifth point-in-time count as the mayor,…
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Bay State Politicians and Patients React to Sessions Announcement on Marijuana
On January 4, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he would rescind the Cole Memo which dictates that federal prosecutors wouldn’t interfere with states that had legalized recreational marijuana. The Cole Memo was issued after Washington and Colorado became the first two states to legalize marijuana, and they came across a conundrum, when regulatory bodies within…
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A Week With Mark Hamill: “At First, I Wondered if Star Wars was a Comedy
Episode I: The saga begins We are sitting together in the backseat of a limousine. Mark Hamill and me. The Disney motor, Hamill’s main mode of transport during filming on The Last Jedi at Pinewood Studios, is expertly guided through the streets of London, west to east. In the backseat, talk is of The Beatles,…
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Friends, Allies, Advocates Continue to Call for ICE to Release of Nahant Activist and Mother
On Jan. 9, a crowd assembled in front of the J.F.K. Federal Building in Boston to protest the deportation of Siham Byah, an activist and single mother from Nahant, Massachusetts. Byah was detained on Nov. 7 after attending a routine check-in at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Burlington, Massachusetts. Separated from her 8-year…
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Federal Weed Ban Brings Back Memories
The people of Massachusetts voted to legalize marijuana but now Trump Appointee Attorney General Jeff Sessions is threatening to arrest the suppliers who are gearing up to sell marijuana in our state. It’s a shame that the federal opposition is making it difficult to carry out the will of the people of Massachusetts who approved…
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Activists Protest Police Brutality On MLK Day
It was clear who the veterans of the March for Justice were. They wore ski pants. On this freezing January 15th, a group of near-60 people marched from Grove Hall to Dudley Cafe. They chanted against police brutality. The third annual Martin Luther King March on Justice illustrated participants’ commitment to progress. The volunteer…
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Bitter Sleep: An Incident at the Boston Public Library
On Wednesday Dec. 27 the National Weather Service has issued its first wind chill advisory in Boston where temperatures are expected to range between five above zero to twenty below zero degrees. Frostbite conditions like this can kill people, and at the Boston Central Library on that day a man was tossed out into them…
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HUD Delays Obama-era Policy on Fair Housing
Fair Housing Act (FHA) requirements for funding have now been put on hold by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) until 2020, leaving housing advocates across the country worried about unaddressed inequities. Under President Barack Obama HUD began requiring communities to provide data on how they address segregation issues and other concerns under…
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