All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

How Hillary Clinton Went Undercover to Examine Race in Education – The New York Times

The proliferation of private schools in the South “was a gigantic event, and it blew the minds of civil rights folks and took the wind out of their sails,” said Douglas A. Blackmon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center who is working on a documentary about the effects of segregation academies.“But in a minute, it was over,” he said of the effort to combat such schools. “And the well-intentioned work Hillary described was no match for the absolute insistence of millions of Southern whites that their kids never go to school with black kids.”

Source: How Hillary Clinton Went Undercover to Examine Race in Education – The New York Times

‘Boycott and sanction’ power to be stripped from UK councils | Politics | The Guardian

The Independent on Sunday reported that the move could prevent local authorities from refusing to trade with, or excluding from their pension fund portfolios, companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said it was a “direct attack on local democracy” with far-reaching implications for all campaign groups .“Public money should be used for the public good, not to support destructive industries like the arms trade that profit from war,” he told the Independent on Sunday.“The government is always stressing the importance of localism but this is a direct attack on local democracy and decision-making.“At the moment the focus may be on arms companies and Israel, but if these changes are allowed to go ahead then they could affect almost all campaign groups.”

Source: ‘Boycott and sanction’ power to be stripped from UK councils | Politics | The Guardian

A life unraveled

Heroin and other opioids have devastated Massachusetts families. Over the past year the Globe spent time with Raquel Rodriguez, a heroin addict from East Boston, as she struggled to get clean for her two young daughters. Raquel opened her life to us in hopes that her story might help someone else.

By Jessica Rinaldi
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High on heroin, Raquel Rodriguez reacted as her daughters, Estrella (left) and Mimi, ran back and forth across her small living room. Tomorrow Raquel will go to the clinic and get her first dose of methadone, but tonight she worries that she won’t be able to do it. Raquel has been battling with addiction for the majority of her life. Born to a heroin- addicted mother, she has memories of drug use and sexual abuse by her early teens. She has tried to quit using before, but this time she is determined to get clean for her two young daughters. “I want them both to have a childhood that I never knew existed. Happiness, joy, love,” she said.

(Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)