My wife and I are shopping again at the Arsenal Mall. And then waving in thanks to a Watertown Cop driving past. The new normal after lock down and neighborhood terror days. If you lived near here, you have indelible personal experiences about the meaning of ultra violence, running gun fights, sheltering in place, and manhunts.

Having skin in the game, makes me want to raise three questions. First, what did the FBI know, and when did they know it? That's the most politically explosive question, and should be answered in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Last Friday night, after news reports that one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings had been killed and another was captured, the media became fixated on crowds of Bostonians taking to the streets to "celebrate."

There is nothing to celebrate. This week has been a tragedy at every level. It began with the horrific bombings at the Boston Marathon, killing three people, wounding over 180, and traumatizing an entire city. It finished with a gunfight that left two dead and the whole city locked down as thousands and thousands of police and military personal conducted a massive manhunt for a 19-year-old.

In 2012, four-year tuition at the average public university cost more than $15,000 – not counting books, meals or housing. At the average private institution, that figure was even higher, clocking in at over $32,000. Even two-year and vocational programs ran nearly $9,000 per certificate.

With the cost of higher education skyrocketing, it’s easy to assume that professors – the men and women who educate our students – are doing quite well for themselves. In some cases, that’s true: tenured faculty members’ salaries at leading universities can top $160,000 a year. But the average adjunct professor makes just $2,700 per course, with no health care insurance or other benefits.

Don’t let the strands of colorful beads from Rwanda, long brown hair, and dimples fool you. Jina Moore may look like a coed as she strides down the corridors at Boston University, but she’s a seasoned multimedia journalist whose specialty is gritty human rights stories.

Moore was among the 300 journalists and academics from nine countries and 27 states in Boston last weekend (April 5-7) to attend the university’s 4th annual “Power of Narrative” conference at which professionals in all media share the latest techniques and technologies for telling news stories.

A perennial target of their detractors, Massachusetts state public sector workers are no strangers to having their salaries scrutinized. Attention often focuses on the top pay received by a few in chief public sector jobs, but what about the vast majority of employees who are working hard and don’t earn the big bucks? Open Media Boston brings you the full facts in a snapshot of state public sector pay in 2012.

Research by Open Media Boston has found that over 92 precent of all state public sector workers in the Bay State earned less than $100,000 a year, based on data received by the Boston Herald through the state’s Public Records law and made available online. Out of over 98,000 workers in total that means a full 91,000. Only a further roughly 7,500, or 7.8 percent, earned more than $100,000 in the public sector that year.

BOSTON/Symphony Hall—Processed meat, Symphony Hall and self-proclaimed “budget hawk” Erskine Bowles.

Not exactly peas in a pod.

Nonetheless, these three diverse elements combined on Wednesday as upwards of 150 local seniors, unemployed workers and activists braved near-freezing temperatures and descended upon the venerable hall at the corner of Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues, many clad in colorful bologna costumes, to tell “Fix-the-Debt” co-founder Bowles to “Stop the Baloney”—a reference to the latest plan from Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of President Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, that critics say is another thinly-veiled attempt to pillage Social Security, Medicare and other critical programs in favor of new tax breaks for corporations.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we at MassUniting.org couldn’t help but take a peek at the personal ads to see what lonely souls out there might be looking for love on this particularly romantic holiday. Imagine our surprise when we came across an ad titled “Gold Diggers Looking 4 Love.” [see image]

This personal ad may be a bit of a joke, but there’s nothing funny about Fix the Debt or their gold-digging agenda. While the corporate front group whispers sweet nothings in our ears about “shared sacrifice” and “debt reduction,” they’re hiding their true plan to break our hearts by cutting Social Security, raising the retirement age and taking more from our paychecks.

You may have seen their ads on TV or been accosted by a Fix the Debt canvasser on the street – they claim to be a grassroots effort promoting steps to reduce the national debt. But the truth is, Fix the Debt is just another corporate-financed DC lobbying group looking for taxpayer handouts.

That revelation prompted a flashmob-style demonstration today outside the New England headquarters of a major Fix the Debt funder and beneficiary, Bank of America. More than 75 workers and retirees, police in tow, descended on the financial giant’s Federal Street building to call Fix the Debt corporations out for what they really are: gold diggers.

Kaveri Rajaraman, who graduated from Harvard University in 2009 with a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology, was arrested In Bangalore, India on Saturday, Jan 19, 2013. She was picked up for resisting the demolition by the municipal corporation of tin-sheds in a housing area for the Economically Weaker Section in Bangalore city.

In 1984 the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP -The Greater Bangalore Municipal Corporation) built 1512 houses in Viveknagar, Bangalore and distributed them to Economically Weaker Section families in 1996. These residential units were not provided basic facilities like water or toilets. The buildings started cracking 5 years after being handed over and collapsed after 7 years of allotment. Three persons including a child died in the building collapse and several were injured.

What kind of society do we live in? Two disturbing trends help answer this question.

First, growing numbers of our citizens are living below the poverty level and even, alarmingly, below half the poverty level. Growing numbers receive food stamps, live in shelters, and are daily denied emergency shelter assistance.

Second, despite the rise in poverty and inequality, the percentage of Americans who favor government help for the poor is declining. According to a Boston Globe article (“The Great Divide,” 11/4/12, p.1), the slide in approval of public benefits is especially dramatic among Republicans, whose support for aid has dropped from 62% to 40% over the past 25 years. Among Democrats, support for government assistance has also declined, from 79% to 75%.