Massachusetts State Senator
Deeply enjoyed Lexington’s notable celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day, which featured a luminous and evocative performance by Navajo musician Geri Barney (middle) and remarks by event organizer Stephanie Stonefish Ryan (right), Lenape tribal member and Lexington resident.
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.
Our state’s GSEP (Gas System Enhancement Program) program adds billions in costs to Massachusetts monthly gas bills and makes us no safer than we were before. You want energy affordability? The MA Senate and House can give it to you: Phase out GSEP. Language to do so awaits legislative action. Kudos to the Future of Heat Initiative and the climate advocates of Massachusetts for putting good information in front of policymakers and the public.
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.
Senator Mike Barrett, co-chairman of the Massachusetts legislature’s telecom and energy committee, hailed the news from Augusta as a relief in the face of Trump administration opposition to all the major offshore wind farms that were once planned to support the region’s grid. Now, only two remain: the Revolution Wind and Vineyard Wind 1 projects.
“’Electricity that pours into that grid from Maine ultimately helps with the Massachusetts capacity, especially on overtaxed and hot days, and especially cold ones,” Barrett said. “It is further indication that we’re going to survive Donald Trump too. We’re adding to both grid capacity and clean energy supply in the face of non-cooperation, to say the least, from DC.”
