Dear Community Member,

Today marks one year since the COVID-19 state of emergency was declared in Massachusetts. The past year has been undeniably difficult. We’ve lost 75 people in Somerville to COVID-19 and still more are suffering long-term effects of the disease. Many have also experienced financial and social losses in the past 12 months.

By Alex Reidy

The Somerville City Council’s Human Rights Commission meeting on March 3 concerned a letter to be drafted in the future, detailing questions for immigrant restaurant owners. Questions such as “What’s your story?” “How can the city of Somerville help you?” and “What has been your experience been like being a restaurant owner in Somerville?”

The increasing popularity of so-called “clean beauty” products, such as those sold by Noel Herbals in Somerville, indicates a rising trend among health conscious consumers. — Photo by Lillian Cohen

By Lillian Cohen

We are constantly concerned with how we look and what we put in our bodies. But what about what goes on our bodies?

The “clean beauty” market has swept through the cosmetic industry, fueled by growing concern over product ingredients and their impact on the environment. Founded on natural safe ingredients and an eco-friendly mindset, the clean beauty industry is largely made up of small businesses. And yet, the clean beauty market is currently worth $5 billion and expected to double in the next seven years, according to Brandessence Market Research, with many larger beauty companies such as Yes To and Neutrogena framing their own products toward similar values in an effort to recapture the market.

This week, Ward 7 City Councilor Katjana Ballantyne announced that she will be running for mayor, in hopes of replacing Mayor Curtatone, who has said that he will not be running for re-election again. Although she is the first to have formally announced, we’re sure there will be others who step forward for your consideration. We wish her and all the others the best in their bids to become our new mayor.

Tipping Cow co-owner Gerly Adrien.

By NaBeela Washington

Despite restaurants and businesses limiting their operations to meet Commonwealth and additional Somerville COVID guidelines, Somerville remains a community that is enriched by local businesses refusing to give up. We recently spoke with one of those businesses, Tipping Cow, an ice cream shop that was founded in 2013.

The Somerville City Council invites the public to join a virtual community meeting on Civilian Oversight of Police and also to take its survey about civilian oversight.

Join the meeting to learn about the Council’s ongoing work to establish civilian oversight in Somerville, and how the public can get involved. The virtual meeting will be held on the Zoom teleconferencing platform on Wednesday, March 24, at 6:30 p.m. The meeting can be joined by phone, online via Zoom, or watch it without signing in on the City’s GovTV channel and YouTube. For details on how to join or watch the meeting, please visit somervillema.gov/CivilianOversight.

Who thought this thing up anyway? Spring forward, fall back. Or is that fall forward, spring back? The only way we can ever be sure is if we’re early or late for church Sunday morning, or whatever it is you do on Sunday morning.

To be fair, there’s usually someone around smart enough to know the difference, if it isn’t you yourself.

Eagle Feathers #225 – Poet’s Perch

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

In the mid nineteenth century, John Townsend Trowbridge’s name on a story was said to be a near guarantee of success. He was a writer of the first degree, having scribed over sixty volumes and abundant publications, many of them adventure stories for boys. Trowbridge’s papers are housed at the Boston Public Library and Harvard University. His admirers believed that nothing written by his pen failed.

Arrests:
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James Dooley, of Saugus, March 2, 2:22 p.m., arrested at Dickson St. on charges of possession of ammunition without FID card, possession of a firearm without FID card, and trafficking in firearms.

Jonathan Torres-Sindo, of Everett, March 4, 5:14 a.m., arrested in Boston on warrant charges of carrying a firearm without a license, possession of a firearm within 500 ft. of a dwelling, assault to murder, and possession of ammunition without FID card.

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Article by Michael T. Steffen
Correspondent for Off the Shelf

Tucked in with a good deal of intimations of immortality, in a suggestively boundless discourse on Eastern philosophy, underscored by a belief in reincarnation, with many references to the teachings of Bapucharya, the actual narrative of Paul Steven Stone’s new novel, SOULJOURNER (ISBN: 978-1-912526-4-9, Fahrenheit Press) by contrast beds the loftiness of the protagonist David Rockwood Worthington’s consciousness in the halting mundanity of his current life circumstances, serving a life sentence in a federal prison, haunted by the memories of three failed marriages – the last by murder, hence the prison.