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When I began contributing to this blog many years ago, I often would post links to opinion pieces in national media that I believed were worth sharing locally. I shared a lot of David Brooks’ columns, which may have surprised people. He’s on the NY Times commentary list as a…
Read More »If You See Something, Say Something It’s Memorial Day weekend. My father, Marcel Marion (1919-1982), born in Lowell, fought the Nazis on the ground in Germany with the US Army in the brutal winter of 1945, the final months of the war in Europe. He knew a fascist when he…
Read More »After reading today’s New York Times article about Ohio supporters of President Trump who are staying the course with him despite all the chaos associated with his presidency, I’m re-posting my thoughts about his victory that appeared on this blog on Nov. 16, 2016. It would be a mistake for…
Read More »Jane Brox, who grew up in Dracut in the Brox Farm family, will read from and sign copies of her new book “Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives” on Thursday, May 16 at 6:30 PM at the Andover Bookstore, 74 Main Street…
Read More »Web photo courtesy of Matthew Shepard Foundation He Continues to Make a Difference: The Story of Matthew Shepard All are welcome to attend this program which uses poetry, photographs, and creative visualization to explore the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder on the world .Monday, May 19, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.,…
Read More »Web photo courtesy of baseballrulesacademy.com I’ve been watching baseball since I was old enough to follow the action. That’s more than 60 years. I played baseball and softball until I was about 40 years old. Now I’m like the person in the TV ad, a “professional baseball watcher.” I admit…
Read More »On the last day of National Poetry Month, we have a poem by writer and painter Chath pierSath who lived in Lowell many years and earned a master’s degree in community social psychology from UMass Lowell. He’s based on a vegetable-and-fruit farm in Bolton now and regularly travels to Cambodia…
Read More »A special poem for National Poetry Month. Thomas Fitzsimmons (1926-2017) was born in Lowell and attended Lowell High School (he left to join the Merchant Marine but later earned a diploma elsewhere). Here’s a bit about his life from his obituary in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper: “He is…
Read More »Geoffrey Douglas, long time staff writer and sometime adjunct professor at UMass Lowell, has a new book forthcoming from Globe Pequot Press. A compilation of many of his Yankee magazine stories written over more than 20 years, the book has one selection of special Lowell interest and which I want…
Read More »From the office of Mayor William Samaras: City of Learning: Realizing the Mogan Legacy The Lowell community is organizing itself as a “City of Learning” in the spirit of the global Learning Cities network of the United Nation’s UNESCO program. Places like Cork, Ireland; Nairobi, Kenya; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Volos,…
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