This week marks 55 years since the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. The genesis of the first Earth Day had begun a few months earlier when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland literally caught fire because of the chemicals…
Category: Editorials
A First Taste of Summer
With temperatures reaching the 80s this past Saturday, our region felt its first taste of summer. But, as always is the case at this time of year along the Massachusetts coast, Saturday’s balmy air provided just a fleeting glimpse of…
Pope Francis
The passing this week of Pope Francis will leave a deep void in the conscience of our world. Pope Francis, a native of Argentina who became the first Jesuit and Latin American pope, fought for a more inclusive Roman Catholic…
Happy Easter
This Sunday is Easter, the holiest and most significant day of Christianity, which marks Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead after his crucifixion two days earlier on Good Friday. Christians believe that Christ died to redeem us from our sins.…
“The Fate of a Nation was Riding that Night”
This week (April 19 to be exact) marks the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord in which civilian militia, known as the Minute Men, routed British troops who had marched from Boston overnight in search of munitions…
Museum of African American History | Boston & Nantucket Needs You!
Dear Editor: On March 27, the White House issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity in American History.” On its surface, this directive may appear to target the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service, institutions under direct…
No Good Can Come from the New Tariffs
It was 95 years ago in June, 1930, that President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff law (which had been passed by a Republican Congress) that imposed draconian increases in tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods. Smoot-Hawley has been…
Plastics: It’s Even Worse Than We Thought
We recently wrote about the pervasiveness of plastics not only in our environment, but also in our bodies. However, as ominous as we thought things were at the time we wrote those words, more-recent revelations by scientists across the globe…
Virginia “Ginny” Diranian
We would like to take a moment to make note of the passing this past week of Virginia “Ginny” Diranian, a member of the prominent Diranian family who operated the famed Avenue Restaurant across from City Hall on Washington Ave.,…
Vaccines are Safe — and They are Essential
The recent outbreak of a measles epidemic in areas of west Texas and New Mexico (where the measles vaccination rate is far below the national average) should serve as a warning to all Americans that vaccinations against measles and other…