By Claire Marie PorterKerry Boland doesn’t remember getting a tick bite. It was 2002 and she was entering her first semester at Georgetown University when she began experiencing flu-like symptoms, which landed her in the emergency room. A short time later, she started experiencing extreme food intolerances. She couldn’t eat gluten without hours of vomiting
MoreBy Claire Marie PorterIt’s the imperfect trees that make a beautiful piece of furniture for John Duffy of Stable Tables. “I don’t really consider myself an artist or anything like that,” Duffy explains. “I’m more of a business person.”Stable Tables, he says, began after he bought a table from a carpenter in Maryland and had to
MoreBy Constance Garcia-Barrio Devaluing black women’s work is a holdover from slavery time. It often cuts our employment opportunities, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank focused on economic issues. The view prevails that women of African ancestry should go on being “…de mule uh de world…” as the acid pen of
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By Meenal RavalThere’s a Global Climate Strike planned for Friday, September 20, days before the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City on September 23. The Global Climate Strike invites people of all ages to strike—by refusing to attend work and school—to disrupt the social order and to push our governments to act on
MoreBy Claire Marie PorterDid you know that you can major in sustainability? Colleges and universities all across the nation offer programs on the subject. “A lot of people assume that sustainability is [just] environmentalism. It’s not,” says Rob Fleming, an architect, professor and director in the sustainable design program at Thomas Jefferson University. The term
MoreBy Claire Marie PorterRyan Ebner is a construction consultant by day and a cooper by night. In a rented workspace in West Philadelphia, shared with Ice Sculpture Philly, he and his father, Jeff, moonlight amongst smells of smoke and wood.The father-son duo started Anthony Barrel Company in 2015 as a side hustle. Jeff is a
MoreBy Constance Garcia-BarrioFor a black transgender woman, being true to one’s self sometimes exacts a horrific price. One hears little about them unless they make lurid headlines as victims of violence—as did Michelle “Tamika” Washington, shot to death on May 19 in North Philly.
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By Randy LoBassoAfter I testified at City Council on a Vision Zero issue in the spring, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, where I work, put up a blog post with a bit of context and the transcript of my testimony, which was then shared far and wide on social media, including in the local
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By Meenal Raval Thanks to the climate crisis, we’re guaranteed hotter and wetter weather in the years to come. We’re used to our humid summers in Philly—but hotter and more humid? How are we all going to cope with that? When we cool our indoor spaces with air conditioners, we’re basically pushing the heat and
MoreBy Jillian BaxterAs the city experienced its hottest day of the year on July 19th, the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) dropped a 50-foot banner from the roof of PECO’s Market Street headquarters that read: “Climate is Changing: Why isn’t PECO?” Three EQAT members, who hopped a fence to drop the banner while on a
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