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What you should know about homelessness

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According to Yale Neurology I am homeless . I say according to them, because the resident who saw me most recently noted that. I did not want to depict my lifestyle that way, but how else would one assess five consecutive nights without shelter? Although I make $1163 a month in Early Social Security benefits and am getting a small stipend from a cousin, it is never enough here in Connecticut. Between dental bills and storage payments to both the U.S. and the U.K., where I went to grad school, I'm tapped out two weeks after receiving my money. You don't want to lose even one night of sleep. Although you may think you understand how it feels, because you have traveled to Peru and experienced jet lag or enjoyed an all-nighter at 17, ending up at a pancake house at five a.m. and not sleeping (as I did once), you don't have any idea. After five nights of sleep deprivation, even if you can count backwards by 7's (as I did for Yale Neuro, at their request), you are confusing w...

When silence isn't golden

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When I worked at a trucking magazine, Trump was President. I never had an opportunity to report on him, but shortly before I started, his apearance in one of the trucks we provided on the White House lawn became iconic. Not everyone I worked with supported him, but I remained neutral, happy to have a job. Besides, what harm could he really cause? Look at him playfully mock honking, as excited as an eight year-old skipping school. Flash forward to 2024. The world is aflame with wars and hunger and deforestation. Here in Connecticut, I worry about actual flames as wildfires blaze east of Hartford. This is no time for silence. When a famous science journalist I know spoke out against Trump and his followers, she was canned. Her carefully worded apology to readers made me want to scream, "Nooo! You were speaking the truth!" For Trump 2.0 is not a cute photo op, whether he poses in a garbage truck or the fry station at McDonald's. Since we first saw him take office in J...