On November 20, the US House Judiciary Committee took a huge step toward ending the prohibition of marijuana when they voted to pass the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act. True to its name, the legislation would not only remove cannabis from the federal controlled substances list (where it currently sits at schedule 1, […]
Lucy’s Hearth opened as a small overnight shelter in Middletown in 1984. They grew with the needs of the community, expanding and becoming a 24-hour shelter, affiliated with Family Service of Rhode Island and accredited by the Council on Accreditation. They are now in a 9,300 square foot facility to better support families in need. […]
Everyone who celebrates Christmas can point to a movie, a TV special or a song that instantly makes them feel like Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol — goddamn psyched up for Christmas. If you care about Christmas like I do — you have something that hits you right in the heart […]
The holiday season evokes a wide range of reactions from southern New Englanders, from full-on participation in the spiritual elements of the season to engagement with shopping and other secular activities (lights, parties, Frosty, et al) to flat out rejection of the season as nonsense. Family time generally is a consistent theme throughout the season, […]
On November 30, the Renaissance Church on Broad Street hosted a reusable bag sew-in. Volunteers brought their sewing machines, needles and thread and made bags from material donated by Ocean State Job Lot. And of course the volunteers did not forget the finishing touch, which was to stitch handles on the bags. Believe it or […]
“I call it a curtain, but it’s, of course, a drop scene,” says Richard Ring, deputy executive director for collections and interpretation at the Rhode Island Historical Society, as he unveils the broad swath of fabric. “This would have been dropped onto the stage between acts.” The recently restored curtain shows a view of 1809 […]
When I was going through the public school system, there was no such thing as environmental education, not in the way that it exists today. The only integrated outdoors time we had was recess and, on occasion, gym class. This was an era when phones didn’t yet have screens and computers were still large, bulky […]
As humans, we fear change. So, what happens when our doctor recommends it? As it turns out, people are resistant to the idea even when the alternative is debilitation or death. For patients with problems such as diabetes and heart disease, a change in lifestyle could be life saving – but studies have shown that […]
Blacked Out If you are like Phillipe and Jorge − and probably blessedly not so − we have now had it up to our eyeballs with Black Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, month-long Black whatevers, and any other promotion on to which retailers can slap the name “Black.” Even the dulling effects of […]
Aries: The shifting sands beneath you are beginning to stabilize. Now that you are on solid footing, you can make the changes that you deem necessary. Lots of action around the Full Moon pulls you in a new direction. As the year ends, that new direction solidifies and you bring some dreams down to earth. […]