The Supreme Court is ruling on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 — a ballot that banned same sex marriage, and on “DOMA” (Federal Defense of Marriage Act). Advocates have called gay marriage today’s civil rights issue. Under that analogy, anyone who opposes it is easily dismissed as a homophobic bigot. It has been a [...]
My neighbor said she hadn’t stopped crying all weekend. A shooting at an elementary school? Another friend and mother of elementary aged children felt “apathetic” that weekend — that there is nothing that can’t be senselessly taken from her. Lanza’s first victim was his own mother. All six adult victims were women. He killed 20 [...]
Tony Andreotti came with a rake. He is brushing back November leaves that have already covered the grass near the newly placed memorial, helped paid for through his veterans agency. Andreotti and a small team are battling the cruel effects of entropy with an announcement planned for this morning. Connor Erickson ties balloons to a [...]
Starting this school year Massachusetts has enacted a new nutrition law. For parents it means you can no longer celebrate your kid’s birthday by sending in 24 cupcakes to her class, but you are still free to pack as much junk as you like in your child’s personal lunchbox. The law impacts all vending machines [...]
You feel the vibration in your pocket. You reach for your phone and realize it’s on the counter. The feeling is called “Phantom Buzz” and research says it’s just one in many ways that smartphones are re-wiring our brains. May’s Atlantic magazine has an article asking if our constant connection to Facebook is making us [...]
At this year’s Annual Town Meeting, Article 37 deals with abandoned properties. Not so long ago, who would have thought that such an article would be needed anywhere in our state or even in the East Coast, never mind in a town like Canton? The housing crisis is something that’s not easy to understand. From [...]
When it comes to taxes, politicians and voters alike tend to break into two simplistic camps: “No new taxes” and “save the children.” Taxation and whose interests the collected dollars will serve are usually complex. The more complex an issue and the more at stake, the more likely the dialogue will degenerate into simplistic slogans, [...]
We liberals looked to President Obama to bring sanity back to America. We were done with a war that had destroyed our economy while making Vice President Dick Cheney — a man literally without a human heart or pulse — billions for his former employer in military contracts. We were done with the Bush Family [...]
I have to turn off the radio because I can’t listen to another economic failure due to unregulated greed. Who in their right mind thought the so-called “Super Committee” could ever come up with a workable federal budget? All the factors that froze Congress during the debt ceiling crisis would follow the bipartisan committee right [...]
On October 15, my family went to the Boston Book Festival to hear Pulitzer Prize winning and nominated authors speak on the dangers of a lost economic decade on scientific progress. Later that Saturday we found ourselves swept in the passions of “Occupy Boston,” which marched past the Trinity Church near the Boston Public Library [...]
