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The UMass Lowell Public Affairs Office reported on the newest newcomers in Lowell — young falcons.  With the assistance of state wildlife experts, the peregrine falcons were hatched on the roof of Fox Hall, 18 stories up. There’s a webcam broadcasting activity in the nest 24/7. The link is in the article by Edwin Aguirre.

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Hyper-local alert - if you never drive through the Lowell Highlands, this story might not interest you:

After two weeks of construction, the new traffic lights at Stevens and Parker [correction from "Pine" in original] Street (that are part of the down-the-street Lowe’s development) are up and nearly operational.  For the longest time, that intersection was controlled with stop signs on Parker Street alone, so trying to cross Stevens while on Parker was always a tense undertaking.  Maybe 20 years ago, someone installed 4-way stop signs and the intersection seemed to work pretty well, except maybe during the early evening when cars coming from the Cross Point (i.e., the Connector and Route 3) would cause a backup of about a dozen cars.  So tonight, the four stop signs were still there, but the lights were blinking.  The ones facing Parker were blinking red while the ones facing Stevens were blinking yellow - a recipe for a collision, I think.  Once the lights are fully working, it will be interesting to judge their impact on traffic.

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“Linda Sou, program director at the Lowell Community Health Center, speaks at the Save Massachusetts Service Rally on June 16, 2009″. (Bethechangeinc)

“Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick speaks at the Save Massachusetts Service Rally on June 16, 2009″ (bethechangeinc).

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Today’s New York Times has a story about a recent reunion of Chicago police officers who participated in that city’s response to the unrest that arose around the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  This 2009 gathering was attended by protesters, most of whom weren’t alive in 1968, and the mostly retired police officers failed to hide their disdain for the media members covering their get-together.

I was only 9 years old at the time of the “68 convention, but I can remember watching all the craziness on our black and white TV.  During my recent trip to Philadelphia, I met a guy from Chicago who told me he had worked for “the original Mayor Daley and for his son” (that would be Richard J Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976 and Richard M Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1989 to present).  I mentioned that the only thing I remembered about the original Mayor Daley was the riot at the 1968 convention which brought the reply that there were two things Richard Daley wouldn’t stand for: attacks on his family and attacks on his city, and he considered the protestors in 1968 to be attacking his city and he (and the police) vigorously responded to that attack.

My new friend from Chicago then offered this: Many thought the Daleys corrupt but countless investigations found that neither of them ever benefited financially from any city dealings.  Then he said: “The Daley’s were never interested in money; they were just interested in power.” 

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Waiting for a prescription the other day at the CVS at Stadium Plaza, Tewksbury, I glanced at the nearby magazine rack and noticed a cover that I’d never seen before. What caught my eye was a headline for an article about writer/publisher/social activist Dave Eggers. Then I saw the name of the magazine: Ode. www.odemagazine.com. The subtitle: For Intelligent Optimists.

Here’s how the publishers explain themselves: “Ode is a print and online publication about positive news, about the people and ideas that are changing our world for the better.

Ode was founded in the spring of 1995 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands by Jurriaan Kamp and Helene de Puy. Kamp, a former editor and correspondent with the leading Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, and de Puy wanted to create an alternative to mainstream publications, a magazine that was open to new inspirations and new visions from around the world. The cover of the first issue - a close-up image of a radiant woman laughing out loud - captured the joy and spontaneity they wanted Ode to embody.

For the first nine years of its existence, Ode was published in Dutch. But in the summer of 2004 Kamp and de Puy, who are partners in marriage as well as in publishing, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to launch the English-language edition of the magazine. Ode now appears ten times a year in both English and Dutch, with a worldwide circulation of more than 100,000. Over the past 12 years, Ode has helped make the ‘alternative’ media space more mainstream. The magazine profiled people like clown-doctor Patch Adams, guru Deepak Chopra and Dr. Andrew Weil long before more conventional publications made them household names.

During this time, Ode also built a community of readers who are passionate about the magazine and the issues for which it stands: positive social, environmental and economic change. Because these readers have a lot to say for themselves - and to each other- Ode created a new website that allows them to communicate, socialize and contribute to Ode. Odemagazine.com’s mix of print and online journalism with user-generated content and social networking makes it unique on the Web.

In print and online, Ode’s aim is to bring a new reality into view, to explore opportunities for positive change in our daily lives and our daily minds.”

The June.July 2009 issue has articles about environmentalist Lester Brown and climate change, eco fashion, home energy use, doctors in Sudan, Brazilian author Paolo Coelho’s thoughts on aging, and new research on fat in our diets. The magazine has a little bit of the flavor of Utne Reader. In fact, Utne advertises on the Ode website.

With all the community-builders and forward-thinkers in Lowell these days, this magazine might be of interest. I was surprised to find it on the rack at the CVS . . . which is a good thing.

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While MTV has Michael Jackson music videos in heavy rotation and people around the world are thinking about the power of his music, two giants of rock ‘n roll last night teamed up for a wild version of The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” at an outdoor concert in Hyde Park in London. Click here to see and hear for yourself.

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Here’s the link for the new trailer for The Invention of Lying, the movie filmed in Lowell last year.

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This week I traveled to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia to speak about using registry of deeds data to track local housing and foreclosure trends at a conference called “Understanding the Housing and Mortgage Markets: What Data Do We Have?  What Data Do We Need?”  Most of the hundred or so attendees were staff economists from Federal Reserve Banks from around the country and officials from the major federal agencies that deal with housing such as HUD and FHA along with some academics who are studying the foreclosure crisis.  During my turn at the podium, I urged everyone to consider tapping into existing electronic land records from offices such as the registry of deeds and the local assessors rather than creating something new that would just duplicate databases that already exist.  My suggestions were well received although many in the audience were incredulous to learn how much information local and state government in Massachusetts already has in digital form and available on the internet.  While the direction of the housing market wasn’t on the official agenda, it was the dominant topic at lunch and during breaks, but I’ll save the details of that for a future post. 

As for the city of Philadelphia, there was much to see and do.  During the past year or two, I’ve participated in a number of events in and about Lowell that have given me a new-found appreciation for public art and architecture, so I used some spare time on this trip to see how Philadelphia handled both of them.  Every few blocks in Philadelphia there is a public square and almost all have sculptures in them such as the “Love” statue (“City of Brotherly Love” – get it?) that sits in JFK Plaza at 15^th Street and JFK Boulevard.  But Philadelphia is best known, perhaps, for its public murals of which there are 2800 scattered throughout the city (video slideshow to come). 

Here are some random observations from my trip: The cheese steak from Campo’s Deli was the best I’ve ever had.  There were still lots of Obama signs in windows of houses around the city, and quite a few t-shirts with his image on them – no wonder he won Pennsylvania by such a large margin.  All anyone was talking about from Thursday afternoon on was Michael Jackson – waiting to cross the street, riding the train to the airport, everywhere – people would just stop in front of you and say “I can’t believe Michael Jackson died.”  People who work for the Federal Reserve are hardcore Blackberry users; I didn’t see a single iPhone during the conference.  Two things tell me the economy in Philly is not so great: there was very little construction going on and I don’t think I saw a single foreign tourist.  The public transportation system isn’t as comprehensive as Boston’s; there are only a couple of subway lines but you often have to transfer to a bus to reach your ultimate destination.  Their “regional rail” is nice: 30 minutes from the airport to the downtown station for just $7 on a quiet, clean and convenient train.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art has some nice stuff inside, but the highlight for most are the front stairs which were made famous in the movie Rocky (those are the stairs he ran up while “Gonna Fly Now” played during the first movie).  I watched a bus pull up at the foot of the stairs and disembark 30 high school students.  They lined up at the foot of the stairs, someone shouted “Go”, and they raced to the top.  Once at the top they turned around, ran back down, climbed aboard the bus and drove off – no artwork for them.

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There’s a great post on audiofloss about Bob Dylan’s visit to Lowell in November 1975. With Joan Baez due to land in Lowell in July on her 50th anniversary tour, the timing is right to reminisce about the Rolling Thunder Revue tour that barnstormed through New England in ‘75. (Let’s thank Peter Aucella, John Marciano, and the Lowell Summer Music Series/Boarding House Park/National Park Service/Lowell Festival Foundation crew for making this a Baez-Dylan summer with Joan on July 30 and Jakob Dylan’s Wallflowers on Aug. 14).

Sam Shephard’s Rolling Thunder Logbook, Larry “Ratso” Sloman’s On the Road with Bob Dylan, and Rolling Stone magazine (Jan. 15, 1976) all report on the historic, local adventure that included an unforgettable sold-out concert in Costello Gym at UMass Lowell (then ULowell) and a tribute to Kerouac at the author’s grave in Edson Cemetery. As audiofloss notes, parts of the Lowell visit were filmed for Dylan’s War-and-Peace-length movie Renaldo and Clara. (Interestingly, about three weeks ago Dylan visited the home where John Lennon grew up in Liverpool while he was in the city to play at the Echo Arena. The caretaker told me last week when my family and I visited the house. So, Dylan likes to make pilgrimages.)

Here’s the audiofloss post, which includes a link to YouTube with a video clip showing Dylan and poet Allen Ginsberg walking the Stations of the Cross behind the Franco-American School. The SUN is collecting memories of any former students at the Franco who remember Dylan stopping by the school — he went inside the old Ayer mansion.

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If we had that Big Bus Company giving tours here, which events would be emphasized? On the theme of top event attractions in Lowell, as opposed to the top ten sites or sights, try this list — in no particular prioritized order:

1. Lowell Folk Festival

2. Lowell Summer Music Series

3. The Golden Gloves

4. Southeast Asian Water Festival

5. UMass Lowell River Hawks hockey games

6. Lowell Spinners baseball

7. Winterfest

8. Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!

9. Portuguese street parades in Back Central

10. MRT theatre productions

Alternates:

a. National Park Service canal-boat tours

b. Lowell Film Festival

c. Tsongas Arena concerts

d. Broadway shows at the L. M. Auditorium

e. Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Lowell

f. City of Lights parade and holiday lighting up

h. Doors Open Lowell

i. Textile Regatta on the Merrimack

j. Puerto Rican Festival

k. Lowell Open Studios

l. Cambodian Expressions at Middlesex Comm. College

m. The African Festival

n. The Quilt Festival of the N.E. Quilt Museum

o. Lowell High School football games

p. Carnivals at Regatta Field in Pawtucketville

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