Spare Change News

Tag: Issue 12-28-2012

  • Time for Action on Common-Sense Gun Reform

    As a parent and grandparent, I remain overcome with sadness, grief and outrage by the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. This unspeakable act of violence will forever imprint December 14, 2012 in our hearts and minds, and my heart goes out to the families impacted by this senseless tragedy and the many others we have…

  • Hobo Jacket

    1. What experiences or concerns did you bring to bear on your decision to launch Hobo Jacket? Do you have a background in homelessness issues, fundraising, programming, social networking, etc.? Do your specific life experiences connect meaningfully with your decision? As a kid, I’ve seen the unfortunate struggle for donations, and I’ve always felt bad…

  • An Elegy for Innocence

    “It is not suppose to happen here.” This phrase is uttered after every mass killing in pristine and pure suburban America. The latest casualty in American gun culture was described by the Consoler-in-Chief as a “quiet town full of good and decent people.” Six and 7-year-old bodies riddled with military grade bullets fired by an…

  • A Happy New Year?

    This is supposed to be a year in review issue, but for me it’s all about the future and what it holds for and for all of us. I really don’t know what it holds. When I think about recent events, I’m almost afraid– the shooting in Newtown. How can anyone possibly think about a…

  • Earth's Evangelist: Bill McKibben

    “Poor people are not something that we talk about too much or pay much attention to in our world,” Bill McKibben said, sipping a glass of sparkling water to nurse a throat hoarse from a weekend of meetings and rallies. McKibben knows something about poverty. In the early 1980s he helped to start a 15-bed…

  • Feeding The Flock

    Oftentimes, when we pick up the newspaper or watch the local news, we hear stories about Dorchester and its surrounding communities. All too often we are greeted with stories of crime and violence. Rarely do we hear positive things about Dorchester or any instances of its upward mobility. Dorchester has evolved from a demographic composed…

  • The Poetry of Martin Espada

    Sheep Haiku Achill Island, Ireland A lone sheep cries out: There are more of us than them! The flock keeps grazing. —– Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 For the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack…

  • Inside the Arab Autumn

    Mona Eltahawy held up her arms to block the blows from gendarmerie batons. The police had crossed from the cool evening exterior of the crowd into the steaming, dusty, tear-gas-choked innards of a movement. The rule had been that when the police enter the heart of the square, the weight of a dying regime lands…

  • The Liberal Lion

    “I am working to reduce crime.” In a spare, direct, and intelligent speech, Congressman Barney Frank emphasized, to the rapt Freedom Rally crowd on Boston Common September 15th, how “politicians are continually pressed for ways to lower crime…” and that his efforts to stop prosecution of marijuana usage would do exactly that. The Congressman is…

  • Hip-Hop and Homelessness

    Spare Change News Exclusive: An Interview With KRS-One By Nakia Hill As the “Teacha” of hip hop, KRS-One, the artist, prepares to travel to New England for his teach hip hop tour, Kris Parker, the person, reminisces about the irony within the connection of homelessness and hip-hop and how he once lived on the streets…