Tag: vote with your wallet

The Art of Craft

Singing Stones Jewelry will be a featured vendor this weekend at The Art of Craft at the Fayerweather School in Cambridge.  This is a fundraising fair for the arts programs at the school.  There will be live music, food, and lots of handmade pieces by craftspeople from all over the region.

Art_of_the_Craft

Please come and bring the whole family.  Admission is $5 per person with a maximum cost of $20 per family.  Parking is FREE and the school is located just off of Route 2 and also off of the Rt 78 and 74 bus lines.

~Kelly

Two awesome videos

These are two videos that have come across my media feeds lately.  They’re very different from one another, but they’re both absolutely worth watching.  And, now that the Game of Thrones season premier is over, you can do just that.

Continue reading “Two awesome videos”

Mark your calendars! Cambridge Open Studios is coming!

Cambridge Open Studios is back, and this year it is all of Cambridge in only one weekend.  Just like last year there will be a shuttle bus that will take you, for free, all over town.  And, lucky for us all, the primary departure point will be at Cambridge College, 1000 Mass Ave, every hour on the hour.  That also happens to be where I’ll be showing my work this year.  I love it when a plan comes together.

Continue reading “Mark your calendars! Cambridge Open Studios is coming!”

As Long As an Unlivable Wage Exists, Someone Will Be Forced to Earn It

And as long as there are people willing to believe that we should just be thankful for work of any kind, this will continue. As long as there are people in positions of power who fight to keep the disenfranchised that way, this will continue. As long as those who claim the power, the money, and the moral high ground continue to do this, this will continue. I can refuse to apply for all the high skill/low wage jobs I want, but it doesn’t get my family any farther away from the edge when I stand on principle, it just means that somebody else more desperate is going to end up taking that job.

Wake up, America.

~Kelly

mikethemadbiologist's avatarMike the Mad Biologist

Minimum wage PD*7860901 Image by Bettmann/CORBIS

In a society that lacks solidarity, misfortune, except that of the most random kind, is viewed as the fault of those who suffer from it. If we believe that poorly compensated workers somehow deserve lousy wages, then we absolve ourselves of the impoverishment we have inflicted upon them. Edward McClelland notes (boldface mine):

If you try hard enough, you can usually come up with a reason a low-wage worker doesn’t deserve to earn a living. If Kim Brown had been willing to move to Cleveland, she would still have her Web support job; if she had chosen a more marketable major than creative writing, she might have found full-time work in Chicago. But no matter Brown’s life choices, her $8.50 an hour job would still exist, not providing a living for someone else.

This is why the belief that education is the primary way to reduce…

View original post 324 more words

Internet in Greater Boston – fewer options for more money

Greater Boston, and especially our home of Cambridge, is undoubtedly one of the technology capitals of the United States, and certainly of the East Coast.   And yet Kelly and I have struggled for years to find a decent, reliable Internet provider for a reasonable price.  Currently we are using Comcast, because we simply could not get reliable service from Verizon no matter how hard we tried.  It was depressing, but at least we figured it probably wouldn’t get any worse.

And then earlier this week I read that our Internet/phone/cable provider, Comcast, is going through yet another merger.

Sigh.  No good can come from this.

Continue reading “Internet in Greater Boston – fewer options for more money”

REMINDER- Meravelha tonight at #PBFund, PARK Restaurant, Cambridge

This is a reminder post for you Boston area music lovers that tonight is the Opus Affair Punch Bowl Fund at PARK in Cambridge.  It should be a great time, Geoff and I will be there, and we’re hoping to win the fund raising competition for Meravelha.  Please, come and have a drink for a good cause.

Details are here.

See you tonight!

~Kelly

Meravelha featured at Opus Affair Punch Bowl Fund

I’ve written about Meravelha in this space before.  Most recently I mentioned that they were up for nomination for the Opus Affair Punch Bowl Fund.  Well, they won, and now they need your help.  The Punch Bowl Fund is an event happening on 1/27/14 from 6pm-9pm at:

59 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

It should be a great time, its walking distance from the T, and with any luck Meravelha will win the money raised there as well.  Will you come and support music making in the greater Boston by purchasing a $5 drink?  This will be great socializing and great fun and I think we can all drink to that.

Geoff and I will be there.  See you on the 27th!

~Kelly

Poverty and the polar vortex

Today I read two very different but still related stories about things that happened in Hammond, Indiana due to the polar vortex.  Both stories emphasize the plight of the working poor in the United States, and how extreme cold affects them in ways that many people may not have even considered.

The first was about a house fire that claimed the lives of three small children and put two others and their father in the hospital.  The second was about a warehouse where workers were forced to continue working – without heat – even after the state had declared an emergency.

Continue reading “Poverty and the polar vortex”

Because Indian food is always associated with the birth of Jesus

For the last 5 or so years a group of us has managed to fit in a feast of Indian food between singing services on Christmas Eve.  For the first few years, however many those were, we went to Bukhara.  The food there is reliably good and the service is always excellent.  It’s a short drive to the place where we sing midnight mass, and they have a parking lot.  Restaurants with parking lots are key in Boston.

Then things changed in 2013.

Continue reading “Because Indian food is always associated with the birth of Jesus”

More Arts & Crafts

The Office for the Arts at Harvard is holding the annual Ceramic Show & Sale.  Details are below and full info is here.  I’m hoping that we can make it if only so we can look around.

December 12, Thursday 3-8pm
December 13-15, Friday-Sunday, 10am-7pm

The Ceramics Program of the Office for the Arts at Harvard will present its annual Holiday Show and Sale December 12-15 at 224 Western Avenue, Allston, MA.

The Ceramics Program provides a creative learning environment for Harvard students, staff, and faculty as well as designers, artists, and scholars from the greater Boston and international communities. This December, more than sixty artists will present an extraordinary selection of ceramic work. From functional dinnerware to sculptural masterpieces, this popular exhibition has something for everyone and attracts several thousand visitors each year.

Free cups made by the exhibitors will be available on a first-come, first-served basis during the opening, December 12, Thursday 3-8pm. The Holiday Show and Sale continues Friday through Sunday, December 13-15, Friday-Sunday, 10am-7pm.

The Studio is wheelchair accessible.

Unfortunately I missed the MIT Glass Blowing Sale this year, but it happens twice a year.  More details are here.

Happy shopping,

~Kelly