Community journalism
Want to buy a child? Seriously. It will only cost you a bag of millet. Leila was sold ... traded really. For a bag of food that would feed her family.
If you're not interested in purchasing a child, what about children who work as many hours a day as they are old just to support their family. Read more
Neighbors for Neighbors (NFN - neighborsforneighbors.org), a soundboard for voices and a springboard for action, connects people who live, work, and serve in your Boston neighborhood. Our objectives include:
-making it easy for neighbors to come together through an online portal so that we may do things together offline
-empowering those who are here so that they may share, and to provide a place for people to listen
-moving people past discussion, through action, produce results
-celebrating our collective power and collaborative spirit. Read more
Where's an obit for Milt Raymond?... What reminiscences have folks of Milt Raymond?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD6QTzeVjpk
Malalai Joya, now 31, was the youngest ever woman elected to the Afghan Parliament in 2005 and is an outspoken critic of the Karzai government and NATO occupation. Press Pass TV caught up with Joya and supporters at an event hosted in Dorchester by Dorchester People for Peace and United for Justice with Peace
Fred Thys at wbur 90.0 fm filed this story:
Capuano: A Washington Insider, Unknown At Home
BOSTON — Mike Capuano has just left a Democratic caucus on health care in the new underground Capitol Visitors’ Center. Most members of Congress walk the corridors back to their offices, but Capuano takes advantage of the Washington weather, much balmier than Boston’s this time of year, by going outside.
Someone calls, “Senator!” from a limousine.
I was reading up on the horrible killing of Yale grad student/lab worker Annie Le, and it appears that the best starting place for news coverage is the New Haven Register.
In any event, when I read comments to their articles, I saw that they have a very nice, un-control freakish way of encouraging responses that remain on the good side of civility:
We encourage your feedback and dialog and ask you to follow a few simple guidelines when commenting on stories on nhregister.com.
1) Please post responsibly.
2) Be polite.
3) Don't hate.
4) If you object to someone's post, use the "Report Abuse" button and we'll review it.
5) Users who don't play by the rules will be blocked and won't be allowed to participate.
6) Self-promotion of businesses or advertisements of anything for sale are not permitted.
No criticism of UH intended or implied, though the Globe and Herald sites certainly could use a bit of this philosophy. I just thought this was a very good way of saying things.
Link: http://www.nhregister.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-q6U-OQo_g&feature=channel_page
Press Pass TV looks at the importance of student rights and legal education.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILgfRKbz6I&feature=channel_page
Press Pass TV does a special report about a blind Roxbury mother of 6's battle for fair and safe housing. After being repeatedly robbed, the Boston Police simply started ignoring her calls as her situation worsened. It was a City Councilor and his administration coming to her help that changed her life around. Read more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZLka0JQlw4&feature=channel_page
Press Pass TV looks at how gentrification is affecting Boston and how value is established.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eI0ayglwZY&feature=channel_page
In the wake of the potential closing of the Bay State Banner Press Pass TV talks to Boston community members and media makers about the vital role that Ethnic and community media plays in creating a healthy community.
Somerville Voices is seeking $500 in donations to hire an investigative reporter to look into possible inequities in the way the city is raising money through its new (and controversial) parking regulations.
I parked my car at South Bay Center Dorcchester MA Allstate Road in front of Target on July 7, 2009. with plenty of empty parking spaces.
I walked to the MBTA to go into Downtown.
When I returned i found my car gone and went into the security office and told it was towed, with little satisfaction. I was not supplied the name of the Management Company for the Mall.
It costed me $120.00 to get my car back.
I am a frequent shopper of this mall and now I will not return. Read more
Over at TellHimFred.com, Barry Freed gives an account of why he's leaving Revere. He believes he lives next to the worst human beings on the planet, and gives a strong case for their nomination as the World's Worst Neighbors.
Reporters beware, don't plunk.
The State House News Service reports that Michael Travaglini, executive director of the Massachusetts pension fund, told a local reporter, "You have no right to record a meeting".
Travaglini later defended his stance by stating the reporter disrupted the public meeting of the Pension Reserves Investment Management Board by arriving late and "plunking a recording device in the middle of the table". Read more
Red line service was stopped around 1:30 AM today due to a girl jumping on the tracks, tweets Kevin Gilnack. The unknown female then proceeded to run up the tracks from Park Street and was caught at the Charles/MGH station.
Service was stopped due to officials turning off the third rail. Bus connections were apparently delayed too. Read more
Recovering journalist Mike Ball has had enough of old-line media types and people like "The Wire" producer David Simon "defaming blogs and other online media."
... Saying that blogs don't do news anywhere near as well as newspapers is pitifully simplistic and quite naive. It's like damning a toddler who's learning to walk for not being able to perform ballet or tap dancing.
Newspapers have been failing and firing local reporters in clumps for decades. Local reportage has telescoped down pitifully. The spike is no longer the evil prop on the city editor's desk. There isn't enough local news for decent triage. There aren't enough reporters on the street and phones to provide the news. ...
At the corner of Mass Ave and State Street. One of those minivan school buses was stopped the over the bike lane, mid-left turn from Mass Ave southbound onto State, with a cyclist and a bike lying on the ground in front of the bumper. Read more
Barry Rafkind reports that Somerville Voices is looking at bringing "crowd funding" to the city to fund in-depth reporting of the sort he's not seeing in the Somerville Journal or Somerville News.
The basic idea would be to set up a site where investigative journos would post story ideas and then interesting residents could donate money to fund their work. It'd be based on a San Francisco effort called Spot.Us.
Because of its expansion through annexation and land reclamation, and because of the vast differences in size between its neighborhoods, making a web-ready neighborhood map of Boston is extremely difficult. Most online neighborhood maps currently available are simple line drawings or text paste-overs.
I've attempted to solve both these problems by creating a neighborhood map of Boston using Google Maps. It overlays the neighborhood boundaries onto Google's existing maps, and scales easily in and out. Read more
Grafton Times went live today.
As many of you saw yesterday, there was confusion on the Boston Fire Department Twitter feed. I am a Boston Firefighter, and not knowing that the city was intending to set up an official Twitter feed, I set one up to keep those interested informed of fire department happenings around the city. Upon learning that an official Twitter feed was set up, I shut mine down. Read more
Following the success of the Boston Police, The Boston Fire Department is now on Twitter.
www.twitter.com/Boston_Fire
This Twitter feed will be updated with information on citywide fire related emergencies whenever possible. Come join us!
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