Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Spanish-Speaking Renters in Nashville Unionize After Maintenance Requests Go Ignored, Crime Spikes at Apartment Complex
Los contratos de arrendamiento. “Apartment leases” in Spanish—it’s been the request of hundreds of renters living at the Union on Thompson apartment complex in South Nashville. The language barrier has meant that the Spanish-speaking renters, many of whom only have access to English through their children, have had no knowledge of how to ask for…
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Indigenous People and Homelessness: a Distinct and Growing Reality
Carole Lévesque is a professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) who specialises in urbanization, culture and society. Over the course of two years, she headed a team of six researchers who studied the situation of homeless indigenous people in Montreal and Val-d’Or and wrote a report on their findings. A specialist…
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Coalition Pushes for Clean Water and Justice in Massachusetts Prisons
Photo: Beth Prendergast On the morning of Nov. 28, a small group of people gathered in front of the Suffolk County House of Correction at South Bay. With them, a banner depicted a tidal wave rushing toward a line of prison cells. The words “#DeeperThanWater”—the group’s name—occupied the bottom of the banner, painted in prison-uniform…
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Boston immigrants rally for temporary protected statuses and DACA
In Faneuil Hall on Wednesday night, about 200 hundred immigrants and their allies and advocates rallied in support of keeping Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and other immigrant groups and preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In late November, President Donald Trump’s administration announced the upcoming end of TPS for Haitian, Nicaraguan, and…
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Activists to Dorchester Planners: We’re Not For Sale
A City-led community meeting in Dorchester on the ongoing plan to redevelop Glover’s Corner took an unexpected turn on Wednesday night when local anti-gentrification activists interrupted the proceedings. But responses from a key city official and City Councilor Frank Baker following the protest provided some mixed signals in terms of how the group’s demands are…
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Indigenous People and Homelessness: a Distinct and Growing Reality
Photo by Paul Fleurent Carole Lévesque is a professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) who specialises in urbanization, culture and society. Over the course of two years, she headed a team of six researchers who studied the situation of homeless indigenous people in Montreal and Val-d’Or and wrote a report on…
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Memories of Thanksgiving on the Street
I enjoyed this past Thanksgiving, probably more than I’ve enjoyed Thanksgiving in quite some time. I got to spend a nice, quiet holiday in my adopted hometown with friends. It was quiet, and I caught up on a lot of sleep and watched movies. I wish I could say that nothing bothered me at all,…
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“The Midnight Line” by Lee Child: A Jack Reacher Book Review
Jack Reacher travels quite a bit. The world is his home. He was an MP in the Army for over 19 years, and, during that time, they told him where to go and how long to stay. When he left the Army, he decided to go where he wanted to go and do what he…
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Economic Development vs. Climate Action: Rebutting Deniers and Wafflers
President Trump, probably telling President Xi Jinping of China that he was totally kidding about climate change being a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. Photo by Thomas Peter, Courtesy of Reuters As negotiators meet in Bonn, Germany, to put together a deal to implement the Paris Agreement, John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at…
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Bay State Takes a Step Toward Single Payer
State senators have approved an amendment to a bill that could help pave the way to a single-payer health-care system in Massachusetts. The amendment, now attached to a larger health-care reform bill in the legislature, directs the state’s nonpartisan Health Policy Commission to compare three years of actual health care costs in the state to…
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