State Senator Mike Barrett

More Than Words, premier nonprofit seller of used books in Greater Boston, has expanded into vintage clothing. We cut a ribbon last night at the renovated Waltham store. Founder Jodi Rosenbaum knows books, knows clothes, and knows kids. “We work with youth, ages 16-24, who are in the foster care system, court-involved, homeless, out of school, parenting, or involved with the Department of Mental Health. At More Than Words, our young people earn a spot on our team running a successful $4M business, gain promotions, set and achieve personal goals, advocate for their rights, and learn skills to set them up for success in any career path they choose.”

Wow! I’m pleased to have helped along the way.

BishopAccountability.org maintains a global archive of credible accusations against Catholic clergy involving the sexual abuse of kids. Drawing on a staggering trove of materials collected over the course of decades and stored in Waltham, Mass., in the heart of my State Senate district, Co-Directors Terry McKiernan and Anne Barrett Doyle supply documentation to journalists, investigators, and victims advocates everywhere. This is the biggest collection of its kind in the world. It is ongoing work no one else is doing. Squaring off against a powerful religious hierarchy insistent on self-regulation tantamount to no regulation at all, bishopaccountability.org has been smart, angry, passionate, relentless, and devastatingly effective.

Dropped in to the amazing Concord Museum to check out the permanent exhibits. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, intact. Henry David Thoreau’s writing desk. (Mind if I sit here for a moment to compose this post? Why, yes, we do!) Hour-by-hour dashboard depicting each nearby town’s participation in the events of April 19, 1775. Susan Foster Jones, Director of Education and Visitor Experience; Matt Boger, Member, Museum Board of Governors; and Amanda Lahikainen, Executive Director, walked me through one of the best small museums in the entire country.

Kathy Madison of Lincoln Witness presented the hair-raising documentary ICE Air to a crowd impressed by the journalism but horrified about the revelations: ICE deportation flights crisscrossing the U.S. to keep immigrants in constant transit and near-constant hiding, away from their families and the lawyers responsible for helping them. To its indelible discredit, nearby Hanscom Airport is a major node in ICE’s network.

The Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History is a spectacular gem of an institution hidden in plain sight a couple of miles from Rt. 128 on the campus of Regis College in Weston. Drumroll on the “postal history,” please, meaning a vivid picture of communication across physical distance before and after adoption of the telephone. And, yes, Spellman is a stamp museum, but because governments have tried to regulate communication through stamps the way they try to regulate communication through the Internet, there’s a lot of just plain history and politics to ponder in Weston. I was pleased to be welcomed to Spellman by Museum leaders Joe Mullin, Brian Howard, Michael Lawson and Ken Flowers.

A light moment on a dark afternoon, witnessing and protesting in the parking lot of Burlington ICE with Bedford’s Rev. John Gibbons, all-around Minister of Good Trouble for social justice advocates in Greater Boston.

Friends and fans from Lexington and Concord joined the irrepressible Hua Wang to celebrate his 60th. Hua wears many hats, including co-president with Melanie Lin of the Chinese American Association of Lexington (CAAL). Our friend Shaw Wang of Concord calls CAAL the best Chinese American organization in the U.S.! Birthday talk? Maybe not!