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In my Substack newsletter a few weeks ago I suggested the city should conduct an after-action review of its policies for dealing with the Covid pandemic, mostly to learn lessons that might better prepare the city for the next public health crisis. I included an observation that I found it…
Read More »Laid Off By Paul Marion The following story by Paul Marion originally appeared on paulmarion.com with the title, “Laid Off,” a chapter from “Do You Think You’ll Ever Go Back?” (a memory book in progress). ONE OF MY PRE-SCHOOL MEMORIES is a composite of scenes with my father during the…
Read More »Back on March 21, 2023, Louise Peloquin reported on the upheaval in French football, with the coach of the women’s team being dismissed shortly before the start of the World Cup. Today, Louise brings news that the team may have hired its new coach: The French women’s national soccer team…
Read More »While scrolling through the Netflix home page recently, I came upon Notre-Dame, a series produced in France which was “inspired by true accounts from French firefighters” who helped save the historic cathedral from complete destruction in the 2019 fire. While the fire is the through-line of the six-episode series with…
Read More »The United States Veterans Administration (VA) celebrated Women’s History Month with a blog post highlighting women who led the fight for better health care for women veterans. One of those recognized was Edith Nourse Rogers, who represented Lowell in Congress for 35 years until her death in 1960. Below is…
Read More »History has always been my favorite subject and, since I’ve lived in Lowell most of my life, I’m especially interested in the history of the city. But the history of technology also fascinates me, particularly how it changes the way people live. Because of that, I’ve closely followed recent developments…
Read More »A few years ago an otherwise forgettable newspaper sports columnist wrote that baseball was going the way of boxing and horse racing in our culture. Both were once major attractions but faded from popular interest. The same seemed to be happening with baseball. To paraphrase a remark often used in…
Read More »Simon Warner, our occasional contributor from England, wrote this review of the book, False Prophet: Field Notes from the Punk Underground by Steven Taylor (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003) when the book was first published. The review first appeared in the journal Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol. 13, No. 2, November…
Read More »Boarding School Blues: Ch. 55 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 55: Here Lies . . . It was already the end of January 1966 and SFA was well into its daily work routine spiced, sometimes, with a little bit of play. The boarders enjoyed their morning maple butter and the chores…
Read More »Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode. Dean Wormer Animal House Back in 1978 when I first saw the movie Animal House,…
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