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Frequent contributor Jim Peters shares the following essay: I have supported Patrick Murphy very strongly for two campaigns now. I must admit that I did not support him when he ran against my sister-in-law, Niki Tsongas, but I did support him two years ago, when he came in eighth for…
Read More »An overflow crowd of downtown residents, bar owners, community leaders and ordinary citizens descended on Lowell City Hall this evening for the special city council meeting on the alcohol-related problems plaguing downtown Lowell. The meeting opened with a presentation and recommendation from Police Superintendent Ken Lavallee. Next came a long…
Read More »“J.L.” Smith Baker Center, photo by Tony Sampas.
Read More »You can’t read or watch a major news story these days without reference to Twitter, the social networking tool that allows users to broadcast “Tweets” in 140 characters or less. That’s 140 characters – not words – including spaces and punctuation. If nothing else, Twitter teaches economy in writing. But…
Read More »We have just set the dates for this Spring’s tours of Lowell Cemetery. In a major departure from recent practice, I’ve decided to split the cemetery in two for touring purposes, covering the Lawrence Street side in the spring and the Knapp Avenue/Shedd Park side in the fall. There will…
Read More »A story in yesterday’s New York Times used 2010 census data to show that a majority of foreign-born residents of New York City who make more than $150,000 send their children to the city’s public schools. The following paragraphs from the story sum things up pretty well: In New York,…
Read More »Over the weekend I finally saw the movie Moneyball which was based on the Michael Lewis book by the same title that is one of my all-time favorites, not because it’s a literary classic – although Lewis is an excellent and funny writer – but because it documents how statistics…
Read More »The city of Lowell seal on the Ladd and Whitney Monument. Photo by Tony Sampas.
Read More »John Edward, a resident of Chelmsford who earned his master’s degree at UMass Lowell and who teaches economics at Bentley University and UMass Lowell, contributes the following column. The day after President Obama’s State of the Union address, the front page of the Boston Globe had an interesting pair of…
Read More »As I drove in Westford Street from Drum Hill earlier today, an orange city of Lowell dump truck rumbled past me. In its wake the street seemed to be strewn with a handful of grayish chunks of snow. Momentarily baffled, I noticed a second truck approaching and saw its bed…
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