Opinion

Last Tuesday a hundred people stood in a cold drizzle at the Chinatown Gate and kicked off a neighborhood weatherization project. City, state, and utility company officials praised each other for persevering through a year of negotiations. Chinese workers and the union construction company that hired them cut a red ribbon to start work on over 50 units of housing.

It was quite a sight indeed. A nine foot statue of Gandhi, flanked by police and security guards, was blocking the entrance to the Goldman Sachs offices in Boston on Thursday. Intended as a gift to be placed in the hallway as a warning against the evils of greed, the statue ended up being rejected and then used to close down the entrance to the building. Hanging off the wrist of the statue was a large poster with Gandhi's words: "The World Holds Enough for Everyone's Need, But Not for Everyone's Greed".

The September jobs figures are out. And once again the political uproar that should have happened if our government leaders and candidates were serious about the seriousness of our economic situation was astonishingly pitiful and about spin not honest solutions.

Early Thursday evening, approximately 80 Somerville community members and affordable housing supporters gathered with sleeping bags, pillows and signs at the front steps of City Hall to protest the recent denial by the Zoning Board of Appeals of an affordable housing proposal that would have provided stable housing to six homeless families in Somerville. “In my back yard!” was just one of the chants that echoed against the brick building as Alderman filed past the crowd en route to their bimonthly Board of Alderman meeting.