Eternal Flame sculpture by Jay Hungate at Lowell Cemetery

Public Art: Eternal Flame sculpture – On Saturday, May 2, 2026, Lowell Cemetery dedicated a new public art piece by Lowell artist Jay Hungate. The cemetery commissioned the sculpture, hand carved from blue and pink granite, to anchor the newly created West Meadow section which will add more than 900 new burial places to the cemetery. A second sculpture, also by Jay, will be installed later this year at the opposite end of this section. At the formal dedication ceremony, guests heard remarks from Cemetery Superintendent Seth Durno, Cemetery Trustees Chair Lew Karabatsos, Lowell Mayor Erik Gitschier, and from the artist. In his remarks, Jay said that most people who come to a cemetery for the first time do so in sad circumstances, usually the death of a loved one. He hopes that his sculpture reminds visitors of the internal spark that glows within each person, a spark that is not extinguished with that person’s death but continues on in the memories of those who remain. To see the sculpture, enter the cemetery at the Knapp Avenue gate and follow that road to its end at a t-shaped intersection. The new section and the sculpture will be visible to your front. 

Article: “Moment of Truth: Sam Altman may control our future. Can he be trusted?” by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz. This lengthy article – 15,000 words – appeared in the April 13, 2026, edition of the New Yorker. Both authors are staff writers specializing in investigative reporting. They conducted hundreds of interviews for this article including many with Altman, who is the CEO of OpenAI, one of the biggest artificial intelligence companies in the world. Although artificial intelligence has been in the works for more than a decade, it burst on the scene in November 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, which was a stunning revelation of the capabilities of AI to those who used the application. Altman gained more fame – or infamy – in 2023 when the OpenAI board of directors suddenly fired Altman over his alleged lying. However, in the resulting fallout, several board members were ousted, and Altman was rehired and remains CEO today. Altman is in the news now because of an ongoing civil trial brought by Elon Musk which alleges that OpenAI, originally formed as a nonprofit to “protect the world from the potential harms of AI”  engaged in a nefarious bait and switch maneuver by switching to a for profit company as soon as billions of dollars in funding were received. In the New Yorker piece, a surprising number of people who have dealt with Altman identify two traits that define his character: He will say anything, regardless of its truth, to get what he wants; and he has no regard for any of the consequences of his chronic lying. Of course, as bad as Altman may be, Musk is considerably worse so there’s no way he can be deemed the “white hat” in this dispute. It reminds me of the Iran v. Iraq War back in the early 1980s. I didn’t care who won, I only hoped that both sides so damaged each other that it reduced the potential harm they could do to the rest of us.

Article: “Historians Contemplate a Birthday” by Jennifer Schuessler in New York Times, April 22, 2026 – This was a report from the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians that was held in Philadelphia earlier in April. The big theme was how historians were responding to the President’s decrees and executive orders that are white-washing American history by eliminating accounts of slavery, racism, sexism, and, as we have specifically seen at Lowell National Historical Park, the achievements of organized labor. Some said in today’s political climate, simply giving a factual account of some event from the past makes the storyteller seem partisan. For that reason, it’s important that historians highlight the sources of their conclusions. (For example, if you were to assert that the reason the southern states rebelled was to preserve slavery, you might quote the speech by  the Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in  which he stated, “The reason we’re rebelling is to preserve slavery.”) Another issue historians discussed was who gets to be a historian. A panel said the historical profession “needed to grapple with the explosion of ordinary people doing history on social media sites like Tik Tok – often very well.” 

Op-Ed: “Older Americans Are Hoarding the Nation’s Potential” by Samuel Moyn in New York Times, April 26, 2026. While acknowledging the harms of “ageism” – the mistreatment of older people for no reason other than being old – the author contends the unfairness of ageism coexists with another form of unfairness: “a gerontocratic society in which the old control ever more power and wealth, leading to overrepresentation in political life and unequal power in social life.” The transformation over the past 90 years has been amazing. When Social Security was launched in the 1930s, the elderly were among the poorest in the country, but that situation has reversed itself. People should be provided with excellent care as they age, certainly better long term care than is available for most today, but that comes with a corresponding responsibility to downsize housing and retire from jobs to increase opportunities in home ownership and employment advancement for following generations which are currently being blocked from achieving the American Dream by their elders. 

Op-Ed: “Platner Has a Simple Message for Democrats” by Ben Rhodes in New York Times, April 26, 2026 – This opinion piece about the Democratic primary race for the US Senate seat in Maine is written by a former Obama era national security staffer. Rhodes spent a day with Platner while he campaigned in Maine. Platner is 30 points ahead in the (primary election) polls, Rhodes believes, because he sounds “radically honest” in the context of American politics, particularly when it comes to opposing the “forever wars” of the 21st Century. Both Rhodes and Platner believe that the Democratic establishment just doesn’t get it. They are petrified of being seen as weak on foreign policy, and they fear attack from outrageous sums of money spent by special interest groups like defense contractors, fossil fuel companies, and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Platner must be doing something right: just this week, Maine Governor Janet Mills, his opponent in the primary who was personally recruited to run by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, dropped out of the race. She was so far behind in the polls that donations to her campaign dried up and she ran out of money.