Middleboro Review and so on

  Sunday Pages: "The Black Paintings" Fourteen paintings by Francisco de Goya Greg Olear Jul 5 Every piece at PREVAIL is free to read and always will be. No paywalls, ever. Your generous support keeps it that way. Thank you! Dear Reader, Madrid, the beautiful and vibrant city where I sit typing this, was founded in the mid-ninth century by the Emir of Córdoba. The name is a corruption of Maŷriţ , a derivation of the Arabic word for stream . That was during the Islamic period, before Ferdinand III of Castile “reconquered” the Iberian peninsula, repulsing the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. He was a pious king, was Ferdinand III, but he was not a fanatic. He recognized that the diversity of his dominions was Spain’s superpower. He took the land from the Almohads but did not try to stamp out their faith. He openly crowed about Spain being a kingdom of three great religions. Despite three centuries of proof of concept, his namesake, Ferdinand II of Aragon, did not agree....

  ADVERTISEMENT Sponsored by The Boston Foundation The Best of CommonWealth Beacon OPINION Gov. Healey should reject the federal education voucher program   July 5, 2026 By Jessica Tang A SIGNATURE COMPONENT  of the Trump administration’s agenda to dismantle public education is a federal school voucher program that would take effect in 2027. This scheme, from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 , threatens to gravely undermine public education a cross the United States and puts the Commonwealth’s standing in public education at risk. Vouchers are a product of the anti-integration movement in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education , when Southern states began offering “scholarship grants” to white families sending their children to segregated private schools. No matter what you call them, the result is the same—expanded opportunity gaps and increased racial and economic inequity. The most recent iteration of this plan provides individuals who donate to scholarship-grant...