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The Dig - Greater Boston's Alternative News Source
Written by CHRIS FARAONE, JOHN LOFTUS, AND JASON PRAMAS Filed Under: COVID, Editorial, News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS
But with your support we can bounce back fast!
Written by JASON PRAMAS Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS
Help our colleagues continue to produce great arts journalism
Written by JYOTI SINHA Filed Under: COVID, NEWS+OPINIONS, Op-Ed
By accepting aid from the food drive, people feel their class status is visible and for some men, their masculinity is exposed and denigrated. People are more vulnerable to feeling ashamed and disgraced as they may be incapable of taking care of their family during the pandemic. In the face of shame, one may feel trapped, powerless and isolated.
Written by JASON PRAMAS Filed Under: Democracy in Crisis, Editorial, NEWS+OPINIONS
DigBoston newspaper will resist any attempt to impose martial law on the US
Written by BILL SHELTON Filed Under: COLUMNS, COVID, NEWS+OPINIONS
Plague Journal 1: It is at once a detailed narration of human dynamics within a quarantined and imperiled population, and a metaphor for the moral choices presented by human existence. For Camus, the plague is the human condition in which random death can be visited on any of us at any time, without reason, and regardless of our virtues.
Written by ANNIE SANDOLI Filed Under: COVID, NEWS+OPINIONS, Op-Ed
Help them fight COVID-19
Written by CLAIRE SADAR Filed Under: FEATURES, News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS, Non-fiction
For their part, members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community were surprised that a group had come all the way from Boston just to support them during this difficult weekend.
Written by JASON PRAMAS Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS
It’s Thanksgiving this week. More correctly the National Day of Mourning. A holiday fraught with contradiction, as I’ve written repeatedly in the past. And what is one to make of it? Originally an opportunity for the descendants of the European colonists who seized Massachusetts—the country it eventually sat within, and the continent that surrounds it—from Native American nations through a combination of deadly diseases, grand theft, and genocidal violence to celebrate their good fortune. Now one of a number of nearly indistinguishable chances throughout the calendar year for (most, not all) people to take a day off from work, eat too much food (often prepared courtesy of women’s unpaid labor), drink too much alcohol, watch sports on TV, and maybe catch up with friends and extended family in the margins somewhere.
Once a harvest festival inaugurated by a Christian theocracy, it has morphed into a secular affair. Though its nationalist overtones remain strong. Nevertheless, it kicks off a period of the year—however commercialized—where people are encouraged to think about other people. To talk to each other, and to give each other gifts.
So, Turkey Day is as messed up as the warmongering capitalist republic it celebrates. But it does bring out some good behavior in Americans that I believe should be encouraged. An attitude that continues through to another secularized Christian holiday, Christmas, and beyond to a hopeful and libidinous New Year’s Eve.
Which is why it’s a fine time of year to make a few suggestions of things readers can do to make the world a better place. Whether you’re religious or not, and regardless of your politics… or lack thereof.
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I’m talking on an individual level here. One on one. You’re walking down the street. You see a homeless person. You see a hand being held out in supplication. So, give that person some money. Some food. Some coffee. Whatever they need in the moment. Look that person in the eye. Talk to that person. That fellow human being in need in front of you. A person you may have passed by a dozen times without raising your gaze from the sidewalk. Maybe ask a question or two. Think about the circumstances that resulted in that person ending up on the street. Then reflect upon how you might help build a society that will not allow anyone to lose their home to begin with.
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Now help a bunch of people. For a couple hours a week or a couple hours a month. Donate your time, labor, and experience. Give a workshop at a local school on something you’re passionate about. Work in a homeless shelter. Build a community garden. Visit with folks in a nursing home. After a fashion, mull over how much can be done outside a system of market transactions. Look for ways to network volunteer efforts together into a front for social betterment.
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Finding a nonprofit organization that really does the good work it says it does can be tricky. So, ask around. Check the news media for background. Go to the website of any organization that looks decent and read some of the group’s materials. Your basic litmus test should be whether the charity in question spends most of the money it raises in the service of its chosen community of interest. Groups that do that are generally worthy of your support. Donate annually… or, and I say this as someone who runs a nonprofit alongside a commercial newspaper, donate monthly. Keep it up as long as you can. And if you can afford it, give to many solid organizations. Set a percentage of your income to devote to good works and give that sum consistently. Note the power of giving, and think about how to expand the gift economy to become the dominant mode of exchange.
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Too late a plan for this year, but in the years to come try converting your Thanksgiving from just party time into a time to both party and help others. Tell your friends and family that you’re going to spend part of the day helping people in need in your community, and invite them to come along. Over time, this could become a tradition. And the more personal networks that do it, the more the idea will catch on. Not that such a service day is a new notion. But it is something that could stand to be spread nationwide. Perhaps supplanting the current majority view of the holiday at some point. Inspiring many people to make such activities part of daily life—and ultimately baking them into our culture.
In closing, I make these suggestions for what I consider to be obvious moral reasons. But also for reasons as political as anything I’ve ever written. Because we’re entering what may well be the most difficult period that the human race has ever faced. And if our species is going to survive and thrive in the decades to come, it will be thanks to simple human solidarity. Based on the kind of actions I suggest above at base.
And if humanity is going to stop genocides like the one that was committed against Native Americans—and far too many other groups of people since—from ever happening again, such solidarity is not optional. It is essential.
Apparent Horizon—winner of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2018 Best Political Column award
—is syndicated by
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Written by DIG STAFF Filed Under: COLUMNS, Media Farm, News, NEWS+OPINIONS
Among the many to weigh in on these issues, the New England First Amendment Coalition (NEFAC) has released a compelling statement... It’s on the money, and so informative and forward-looking that we thought it was our duty to excerpt it here...
Written by DIG STAFF Filed Under: FEATURES, News, NEWS+OPINIONS
Between the protesters, the counterprotesters, the media, the cops, and a handful of trolls, countless stories unfolded in Boston last weekend. These are several we encountered…