Author Archive

Voter Participation in Lowell

Late yesterday afternoon I traveled to Middlesex Community College for a presentation on a study on “voter participation demographics in Lowell, Massachusetts” conducted by Professor Marcos Luna and his graduate students in the Department of Geography at Salem State University (the full study is available HERE). Luna was attracted to…

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Angry gubernatorial candidates

Charlie Baker has been catching some heat lately for seeming “too angry” – while I’m certainly no fan of Baker’s, expressions of anger by a candidate running for governor don’t bother me. But the Republican nominee for governor of New York, Carl Paladino, goes off the charts. Tea Party favorite…

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Texting ban begins today

Keep your smart phones out of sight starting today; the Commonwealth’s new ban on using electronic devices to send or receive messages while behind the wheel goes into effect today. I suspect that the police will be especially vigilant and aggressive in enforcing the law which is a “primary offense”…

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“The Tenth Inning” by Ken Burns

Ken Burns’ latest film, “The Tenth Inning”, just got over on Channel 2. The four-hour program, shown over the past two nights, was an extension of “Baseball” the 1994 Burns program that covered baseball from the beginning. The highlight of tonight’s show, of course, was the Red Sox historic victory…

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Does your kitchen pass inspection?

It seems that we are constantly bombarded with news that innocuous items in the food supply may pose a threat to our health: tainted eggs, tainted peanut butter, tainted tomatoes, tainted spinach – those are only the ones I remember. Our industrial-style food supply chain certainly creates risks, but what…

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“Bandstand Days” by Nancye Tuttle

With some prompting by Dean Johnson of 980 WCAP, Nancye Tuttle recalls her relationship with American Bandstand on Nancye’s World. Here’s what Nancye wrote: Listening to Dean Johnson interview Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon today on WCAP took me back to my teen years when I was an American Bandstand fanatic…

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Lowell Trivia Answers

Here are the answers to this week’s Tuesday Trivia questions: 1) How did Fort Hill get its name? • A fortification was built on it by the Native Americans 2) What corporation was formed in 1792 and is the oldest existing company in the United States? • The Proprietors of…

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