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Radiation from Japan has been found in Massachusetts' water supply
When my daughter asked me if the Japanese disaster could affect us here in Boston, I very calmly and surely said no.
I believed it. A disaster half a world away might have far-reaching economic and social effects, but the disaster itself was safely on the other side of the world.
Or so I thought. Now the disaster seems frighteningly close to home. Radiation has turned up in Massachusetts’ drinking water. Most likely the radiation comes from the nuclear disaster in Japan.
Babies and Booze: Not as funny as we want it to be.
Last week, Strollerderby blogger Sierra Black reported on a popular story in her home state of Massachusetts: that a man tried to trade his baby for two beers. But Boston Globe blogger Mark Leccese sets the record straight by making it clear that the man, Matthew Brace, was really trying to exchange his infant daughter for crack.
Does that change the story’s LOL factor for you? Leccese says the baby-for-beer story wouldn’t die despite its inaccuracy because “beer is trivial, beer is ordinary, and beer is funny. Crack cocaine is deadly, crack cocaine is strange, and crack cocaine is depressing.” Especially if you consider that Brace, his girlfriend and their baby have been homeless and living in a hotel. Continue reading »
The January suicide of tormented 15-year-old South Hadley, MA student Phoebe Prince rocked the nation and shed much-needed light on the grave seriousness of bullying in schools. Strollerderby reported on April 21st that family friends and advocates started a campaign to craft anti-bullying legislation in her honor. Now, according to the Washington Post, the South Hadley school district “has unveiled a draft anti-bullying policy that details measures that should be taken to prevent, or intervene in, a bad situation.” And – this just in – the Massachusetts Legislature voted today and unanimously passed an anti-bullying law. Representative John Scibak told the Boston Globe, “This is a day that we can be proud we have done something positive – to eradicate bullying and to demonstrate to this commonwealth and to the nation that bullying will no longer be tolerated.” (Scibak’s district includes South Hadley.)
Additionally, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Buffalo this week opened the Jean M. Alberti Center for the Prevention of Bullying Abuse and School Violence. Alberti, a clinical and educational psychologist in Chicago and UB alum, told The Buffalo News, “Bullying abuse is child abuse by children. If we don’t allow abuse by adults, why do we allow it by children?” The Washington Post reports that “about one-third of students aged 12-18 say they are bullied in some fashion.” Continue reading »
When Phoebe Prince committed suicide, attention turned to the teenagers who relentlessly bullied her and to school officials, who some say saw what was happening and did nothing to stop it.
In response, schools across the country are taking a harder look at their bullying policies and making changes to prevent the same kind of tragedy from happening in their district. In one Spencer, Massachusetts school, parents are complaining school officials went too far when they created a bully list.
I woke up with the worst politics-inspired hangover of my life today.
Until yesterday, I thought I lived in the bluest of the blue bubbles, politically speaking. Massachusetts, home of gay marriage, universal health care (of sorts) and decriminalized pot. We’re like a suburb of Amsterdam.
What happened here? It’s the question everyone around me is asking this morning.
Last night was reserved for potty-mouthed rage. Today my progressive friends are starting to look around and ask what went wrong. They’re not alone. Pundits all over the country are getting in on the act.
These days, smokers everywhere are getting used to having to step outside to light up. But what if you can’t even do that? In Ayer, Massachusetts, smoking is no longer permitted in the city’s parks, thanks to the efforts of Jason Mayo, a member of the Ayer parks and recreation committee. After watching a father blow smoke in his child’s face as he pushed him on a swing, Mayo decided the ban was needed. “We can’t tell people how to parent,” he said, “but all the other kids around him were inhaling that cigarette too.”
Eight-year-old Meagan Bilodeau was out on a cruise ship in the middle of the sea when her dad talked her into writing a personal message, sticking it into a water bottle, and tossing it into the ocean. “I always wished someone would find my bottle if I sent one. If found, would you kindly write back to me? Please? Please? Please?” she’d written.
She imagined it finding its way to far off places — CNN reports the most likely destination was the U.K. — but something happened to throw that bottle off course and it nearly followed Meagan all the way back home. Teddy Herrick, 11, found it while boating with her own family, just fifteen miles from Meagan’s home in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Teddy lives in Colorado and the girls plan to be penpals.
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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