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Community Comment
With the death of Osama bin Laden, the debate about “enhanced interrogation” techniques has heated up. I wonder whether the Gestapo referred to it as the German equivalent of enhanced interrogation when they tortured prisoners during World War II.... Read more
... “When you’re hot, you’re hot and when you’re not, you’re not.” I cannot determine the source of that bit of political wisdom, but it certainly has a Yogi Berra ring to it.
With the countless hours now devoted to political analysis on television... Read more
The Massachusetts Probation Department would remain under the jurisdiction of the courts, but a new civilian administrator would be hired to help run the agency under a bill unveiled last Thursday by House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
The legislation,... Read more
To the Editor:
Contrary to the Reporter’s story about how well residents and city officials have received the City’s new LED lighting retrofitted into “... Read more
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to your editorial “Community Center Reforms Require Better Planning” in last week’s... Read more
This is the season of acceptances and rejections when high school seniors experience the joy of victory or the agony of defeat when the dreaded envelopes arrive.
My oldest grandchild, a senior at BC High, applied to about 10 colleges and, unlike... Read more
In this period of Lent, I was invited by a minister to speak at a Lenten service that took place in the home of a congregant where the Reverend Phil Jacobs displayed his progressive, whimsical side.
Within the copy of the text of the reading we... Read more
This week, look around when you’re at church and try to pick out which 1 of the 8 women around you will get diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in her life. These women will be witness to some profound changes, when their hair begins to thin and... Read more
One normally associates due process with the courts. The terms refer to the underlying rules of our justice system designed to assure, to the extent we can, that justice is fairly administered.
A complex set of rules governing the right to... Read more
I was present and testified at the Boston Public Schools hearing on March 24, when the unelected Boston School Committee (in Boston, the School Committee members are appointed by the mayor) unanimously voted to approve a budget that cuts out $63... Read more
The so-called — wrongly named — Defense of Marriage Act was both wrong and unconstitutional in 1996, and it’s wrong and unconstitutional today.
It was legalized discrimination — not to mention an abuse of the Constitution for political... Read more
Catholic schools have long helped make the American Dream a reality by giving poor and working class kids the chance to get a quality education. For many, a Catholic education was the key to a better future, serving as the basis for state leaders in... Read more
Last Wednesday, I encountered several people I knew from Dorchester 40 years ago. Some things hadn’t changed.
It started with my old Dorchester friend and colleague Peter, with whom I worked 40 years ago in the Dorchester Tenants Action Council... Read more