In 1937, the federal government entered the world of public housing when FDR signed the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act into law. The law established the US Housing Authority, which created a federally funded public housing program that provided $500 million in loans for low-cost housing projects across the US to help house America’s most financially poor. […]
“The more normal something appears to be, the more ideological it is.” – Angela Davis quoting Wahneema Lubiano in the Black Women Radicals, “Black Feminist Writers and Palestine” webinar (via seedaschool.substack.com) The clocks have turned back, plunging us into darkness before 5pm. The air is getting colder. Seemingly, the hearts of those in power have […]
There is a new piece of public art a couple of blocks from my house, in the playground across the street from the Peace Dale Library. It is a fourteen foot tall, vaguely bunny shaped, abstract sculpture by an artist named Peter Diepenbrock. It was recently installed as part of the celebration of South Kingstown’s […]
[Follow-up from “Opinion — When Hamas seeks martyrdom” by Michael Bilow on October 7th, 2023.] Note: This was published two days before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza on Oct 27. Significance The situation in the Middle East has the United States itself on the brink of war. One critical aspect of World War […]
[Follow-up to “Opinion – Has the Hamas attack on Israel started World War III? We’ll soon find out” by Michael Bilow on October 25th, 2023.] The situation in Israel is chaotic and unclear, as a surprise attack by Hamas terrorists infiltrating across the border from Gaza has been reported to have killed at least 150 […]
When given the opportunity to cover this year’s PVDFest, I jumped on it – what better way to get involved in the action? But first, one major disclaimer: the last time I attended PVDFest was over seven years ago. I had very little frame of reference for this year’s event. Whether this was good or […]
The college experience is vast and diverse, varying from person to person. Depending on whom you ask, going to college could be the best time of your life, and it tends to fly by before you even have the chance to process it; or, going to college could be the most stressful, mentally-taxing period of […]
Photo: Wikimedia Commons. The current state of Providence Water is another example of Rhode Island’s long history of disenfranchising its poor in favor of its wealthy. To be fair, it isn’t just Rhode Island. It’s pretty much an American tradition to exploit the populace when it serves the powerful and neglect them when it doesn’t. […]
As our world inches closer to nuclear war than it has in decades, we prepare to observe the anniversary of the Allied victory over Japan ending World War II, finally brought about by the first (and, so far, only) use of atomic weapons in combat. Rhode Island is the sole state where this once widely-recognized […]
In the United States, laws prohibiting discrimination against protected classes regulate “public accommodations,” a term of art legally that describes businesses and other facilities open to the public on substantially similar terms. Classic examples (such as from the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964) are trains and buses where anyone who pays the fare can […]