Alternatives for feuding student immigrant advocates and journalists As someone who has been both a journalist and a left-wing political activist for a long time, I suppose it’s inevitable that I would feel the need to weigh in on a debate currently raging between Harvard immigrant advocates and the independent Harvard student […]
SOMERVILLE NEWS GARDEN HOLDS FIRST PUBLIC EVENT
Seeks more participation from Somerville residents It has been nine months since DigBoston and the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism partnered with the Somerville Media Center to organize an event asking Somervillians what kind of coverage was missing from their city’s remaining news media. The February 2019 Somerville Community Summit ultimately attracted 115 […]
A LOCAL VOTING PRIMER FOR WORKING PEOPLE
Democracy is for everybody, not just the rich. So get to the polls! Local elections are far more important than Mass voters seem to think, given the historically low turnouts for most of them in recent decades. Especially during off-year contests like this year’s. So, for starters, I just want to encourage everyone […]
MARCHING SEASON: JOIN THE RALLY FOR RENT CONTROL
Mass State House, Oct 29, noon-1:30 pm Twenty-five years after the real estate industry destroyed rent control in Massachusetts, marching season is upon us. A call to arms has been raised by tenant organizations across the land and real estate interests are being pushed back for the first time in decades. So, it’s […]
SIDDIQUI TAKES A DIVE: JOINS MAYOR MCGOVERN, OTHER CAMBRIDGE COUNCILORS IN GREENLIGHTING BACKROOM COURTHOUSE DEAL
The fix was in. While the world was gearing up for the global climate strike last week, the years-long fight over the future of the Sullivan Courthouse in East Cambridge ended in a fast flurry of political maneuvers. Whose outcome surprised no one. Only the manner of the violation of the public trust […]
STATE WIRE: MIT STUDENTS DEMAND CHANGES AFTER EPSTEIN’S CLOSE TIES TO UNIVERSITY REVEALED
“Somebody said at the protest, ‘Money has memory.’ And, we have to think about where our money comes from, because money is not given to MIT with no strings attached, right?”
THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO COME
How Cambridge can put public need before private greed A five-hour city council hearing can really get you thinking. As I sat watching the latest chapter in the East Cambridge courthouse saga unfold at city hall on Monday, I mulled over what it would take to start moving the city away from dependence […]
THE EPSTEIN STENCH
We can’t just hold our noses and look away from academia’s dirty money The 2018 Disobedience Award ceremony was a full MIT Media Lab spectacle. Carefully produced, lavishly catered, part of the lab itself turned into a dance club for a late-night party, this was the lab’s way of using all its prestige […]
TOO MANY COPS
Some thoughts about last Saturday’s counterprotest It’s Labor Day as I start this column and I don’t want to labor too much on it, but I think it’s important to reflect upon a particular aspect of Saturday’s counterprotest against an ultra right-wing “parade” that hasn’t gotten nearly as much press attention as it […]
MORE REASONS TO RESIGN FROM THE MIT MEDIA LAB
The connection to Jeffrey Epstein is just one of many questionable relationships Recently, two scholars announced their plans to cut ties with the MIT Media Lab over its longstanding relationship with Jeffrey Epstein—the New York financier who had been arrested on federal charges for the alleged sex trafficking of minors in Florida and […]
