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Last week’s funeral service for Congressman John Lewis with eulogies offered by three past Presidents was on my mind as I scrolled through the archives for this week’s look-back post. And so I selected this piece about another former President whose stature has only improved with recent events. Me and…
Read More »WOKE COLUMBUS By Stephen O’Connor It’s 1492. Christopher Columbus is leaning on the taffrail of the Santa Maria, writing in his log. He raises his head, brows knit, looking toward the horizon as he polishes the lens of his telescope with a lace handkerchief. Finally, he tucks the handkerchief into…
Read More »The infrastructure that supports urban living has long been of interest to me. We turn a faucet and clean, safe water flows out, as regularly as the sun rises each morning. Making that happen was a great achievement of government, one of many that we often take for granted. But…
Read More »Lowell’s Greek Community Featured in Upcoming National Park Exhibit “The University of Massachusetts Lowell, in partnership with Lowell National Historical Park, announces the opening of an exhibit on the Greek community in Lowell, Massachusetts, titled ‘Acropolis of America: The Greek Community in Lowell 1874-2020,’ on August 1. The temporary exhibit…
Read More »How I came to have an autographed photo of John Lewis By Jacquelyn Malone My admiration—indeed, my awe—of John Lewis goes back to the 60s when he was hardly out of his teens. His first civil disobedience event occurred in Nashville, Tennessee, the place I consider my hometown (though I’ve…
Read More »Good books retain their newsworthiness, so I’m recycling this review-essay about Patti Smith’s most recent book, Year of the Monkey, which I posted on my website, paulmarion.com, late last year. This piece was written before the coronavirus spread among us, a time that seems six years and not six months…
Read More »John Wooding, professor emeritus of political science at UMass Lowell, is the author of the forthcoming biography Gandhi’s American Friend: Richard Bartlett Gregg (Loom Press, October 2020). He is a past contributor to this blog and president of the board at Mill City Grows in Lowell. ‘Cause I’m on the…
Read More »For the month of July here on Trasna, we have been highlighting some of the literary and artistic events cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The other significant arena of cancellations due to COVID-19 is, of course, sport. Today we present an article by Irish sports historian, Dr. Tom Hunt,…
Read More »Paul Hudon: Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (10) Another set of pandemic observations from our riverside correspondent Paul Hudon. We held this post during Baseball Week but the content remains timely. June 21 Something of what we’ll call gallows humor from Mike Nichols and Elaine May, one of the…
Read More »A Perfectly Strange Day at the Beach by Henri Marchand This essay, written in July of 2008 during the last economic crisis, seems apt for our current times. On a recent Sunday morning, a two weeks before the 2020 July 4th holiday, we took our first ride to the beach…
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