Since 1938, when the newly passed Federal Labor Standards Act established the first minimum wage at 25 cents an hour ($2.89 in 1998 dollars), eight presidents have signed into law increases of varying amounts. The minimum wage has provided a safeguard against some of the more egregious forms o

Labor Priest Gets Medal of FreedomMsgr. George G. Higgins, since the 1940’s one of America’s most noted labor priests, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom during White House ceremonies on Aug. 9. For more than 60 years now, he has organized, marched, prayed and bled for the social

This summer radio listeners in the Boston area have had a steady diet of ads for a touring company of Peter Pan. The attention-grabber is a line from its most familiar song: I won’t grow up; I don’t want to go to school. Great fun for all the family. Günter Grass, however, might have be

Revision of the General Instruction of the Roman MissalThe new General Instruction of the Roman Missal, published in Latin and released on July 28 in Washington, D.C., in an English study translation, introduces numerous minor changes in the way Mass is to be celebrated.It also makes a clear legisla

Two scientific teams, one public and one private, jointly announced in June that their researchers, working separately, had deciphered the human genetic code. Elation in the scientific community and extensive media coverage signaled the importance of their accomplishment for the capabilities of medi

According to a recent newsletter of the Administration on Aging, I have something in common with 12 million Americans. I’m a caregiver. The great majority of us are women (75 percent, the A.O.A. reports). Half of us also work outside the home. This caregiving business is really booming. As the

Memoirists rule the literary roosts these days but sometimes with a bad conscience Shouldn rsquo t they be writing poetry or at least novels if they are serious writers Isn rsquo t this retailing of their personal lives a knock-off item or maybe even a cheat a pretense of authenticity undercut

The first time I realized that I was old, at least in the eyes of others, was when a young woman stood up in a crowded bus to give me her seat. Resisting that sobering message, I continued to think of the old as they, not we. The definitive change came only a few years ago at Bethany, when I was wel

The timing could not have been more appropriate: On the first day of the annual conference in Washington, D.C., of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Department of Housing and Urban Development released its report to Congress on worst-case housing needs. The title itself goes to the hear

In the last few years, I have become increasingly involved with death. This involvement has come from three sources: my clinical practice as a physician specializing in geriatrics, my work as a Jesuit priest at an academic medical center and my own attempts as an educator to improve the care of the