Community Comment

On a recent afternoon, I had the privilege and opportunity via a magazine assignment to sit down for an hour and engage in conversation in his Belmont home with a man who was 10 years old when Johnny came marching home from World War I. He will be 105... Read more


“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before... Read more

Since the fiscal cliff threat does not appear to be working, I propose we combine the best elements of the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge with an even more devastating consequence – the physical cliff.

Here’s the way it works: Members of Congress... Read more

For readers who view Joseph P. Kennedy as a bootlegging, womanizing, election-stealing, Nazi-loving villain, “The Patriarch” is not their book. For readers who see Kennedy as a man whose good outweighed the considerable bad, the book is a mixed bag.... Read more

Thanksgiving reminds me of a parable from Luke’s Gospel known as the “Great Banquet.” Contemporary scholars consider this parable to speak clearly in the voice of Jesus. A person of some wealth is holding a banquet and has invited several of his... Read more

In the January 2010 special election between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley, I handed out poll cards for Coakley outside the Kenny School in Ward 16, Precinct 9 in the Pope’s Hill section of Dorchester. I was pessimistic about her chances at that point... Read more

This is school choice season for the Boston public schools and over the next month we will be welcoming parents to a series of school showcases to help them explore their options for next year.

Additionally, between now and early January every... Read more

The current Boston school assignment plan which buses students long distances in 3 zones is unsustainable. From this educator’s perspective, Boston city leaders need to craft a plan which remedies the following daily problems.

Too many... Read more

For many of us, history as a concept is made up of events we have lived through, can recall easily, and can compare with the present. Everything else is safely tucked away in a book, frames of reference from long ago for historians to conjure with.... Read more

Last week, college students across America were glued to their dorm room televisions once again, hanging on every word that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney said in their third presidential campaign debate, and hoping they would hear a phrase... Read more

Saturday Night Live should come up with a new formula that combines debating and prizefighting as a way to give viewers a definite winner and loser instead of the endless “spinning” that occurs under the traditional debate formula. Both sides now claim... Read more

To the Editor:

I have four children who play on this street along with many other children who live in this neighborhood and I have to yell at cars as they fly up my street going in excess of 50 m.p.h.

Myself and many... Read more

To the Editor:

Dorchester resident Ryan Landry was the special guest speaker at the Dorchester Historical Society’s Gala on October 12th at the Venezia Restaurant. The comedian, playwright and director, who entertained the audience with a... Read more

Individuals with disabilities constitute the world’s single largest minority group, an estimated one billion people or 15 percent of the world’s population. They comprise one in five Americans and that number will increase as our population ages.... Read more

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, yet despite increased education and awareness around the issue, domestic violence persists in our culture. Twenty-five percent of women and eight percent of men have experienced abuse from an intimate... Read more

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