When it comes down to the last weeks and days of an excruciating dying process, it's all about options. If I am terminally ill, determined by my physician to be within six months of dying from an incurable and irreversible disease, then I want my physician to be able to prescribe medication that will allow …
Category: Culture
Tilting yes on medical marijuana referendum
For years, as an editorialist, I supported the medical use of marijuana. I anguished when a cancer-stricken friend, deathly ill from the side effects of chemotherapy, was afraid to smoke pot because it was illegal, notwithstanding reports that doing so could significantly alleviate her symptoms. That's just not fair. Access to marijuana for medical purposes …
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“Innocence of Muslims” film tests First Amendment beliefs
Set aside such unacceptable (and criminal) "clear and present" dangers such as shouting Fire in a crowded theater, as a journalist I have always thought of myself as something of a First Amendment absolutist. That's being tested these days. The cornerstone of democracy is having a vigorous marketplace of ideas, where all ideas, regardless of merit, are tested, …
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Looking ahead to Red Sox 2013
Trudging up to Yawkey Way from the Kenmore Square T stop last Friday, I tasted bile in contemplating the horrors of the 2012 team, a performance that defies description by all but the Globe's Dan Shaughnessey. I consoled myself that it was a picture perfect summer night for a ballgame and, besides, I hadn't been to Fenway yet this season. A …
Gaming the games: the real Olympic spirit
One of my favorite childhood stories was the tale of Phidippides, the man who in 500 BC ran from Marathon to Athens, delivered the good news of a victory over Persia, and dropped dead from exhaustion. As the story goes, that's how the modern marathons got their name, and they've been Olympic sports for more than a century. For me, …
Supervisors finally paying the price of sexual abuse cover-ups
Recently, a Philadelphia church official, Msgr. William Lynn, was sentenced to three to six years in prison on one felony child endangerment charge for covering up sexual abuse by the now laicized priest, Edward Avery, whom he supervised. Lynn was acquitted of conspiracy and a second endangerment count involving a second priest, on whom the jury …
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Colorado shooting scares, saddens and stymies us
Shouting fire in a crowded theater is a terrible thing to do. Opening fire is a horror of a whole order of magnitude. Most of America is struggling to make sense out of 24-year-old neuroscience student James Holmes' rampage, which so far has resulted in the deaths of 12 people and injured 59 others, some of whom may …
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Tanglewood: the Higgs boson of classical music
I can't really understand, much less explain, the Higgs boson, or the Higgs field that excites the creation of the Higgs boson. Scientists tell us it is the last fundamental piece of standard model of particle physics to be discovered in an experiment, and it seems to have enough potential as an explanation for an irreducible something, …
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Patrick vetoes raise questions
What is Deval Patrick is thinking these days? Other than his campaigning for President Obama, of course. At issue are the Governor's support of loosening a ban on gifts to doctors from pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers and his move to veto legislative reforms of the use of welfare debit cards. Big pharma has long plied …
Ogunquit fireworks preserve charm of yesteryear
While tens of thousands of Boston concert-goers were being herded from the Esplanade to a tunnel under Storrow Drive under threat of storm, Ogunquit, Maine was celebrating July 4th as tradition would have it: simple and lovely. Standing on the Marginal Way, overlooking the water, the friendly, appreciative crowd could see the fireworks unfolding along the coast: …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 