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Recent events on the Lowell School Committee have drawn attention to the method used to fill a vacancy that occurs on the School Committee (which is the same for the City Council, as well). Since the city’s adoption of “plurality voting” in 1959 – that’s the system in which all…
Read More »A Windy Treatise on the Development of Theogony By Steve O’Connor Well, March certainly came on like a lion. I’m sure you all remember the night of March 1st when the wind, to quote Bob Dylan, “shook our windows and rattled our doors,” and howled around the eves. The wind…
Read More »My Mother, Smoking By David Daniel A recent editorial in the Sun reports how Massachusetts’ ban on menthol cigarettes has cost the state a lot of tax revenue, while, simultaneously, tobacco sales in neighboring states without such a ban have spiked. I know almost nothing about public tax policy and…
Read More »Boarding School Blues By Louise Peloquin Chapter 6: Settling In The first week at SFA was a whirlwind of adjusting to a new environment. Blanche had left Earth to land on another planet. With her peanut head and tight ponytail – the regulation hairdo for long hair – not only…
Read More »February 18, 2021 – (above photo from NASA website) – Members of the Perseverance Mars Rover team watch in mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is…
Read More »The 2021 Lowell City Election will be the first under the new hybrid election organization that features a mix of at-large and district councilors. This past week, the City posted an announcement that the previously released district map will be used in this year’s election and will not be adjusted…
Read More »Below is a narrative account of the 1987 City Election and related events that occurred during that two-year term. To see the order of finish and vote totals of the candidates, visit our 1987 City Election page. On November 3, 1987, voters reelected incumbents Richard Howe, Brian Martin, Robert Kennedy…
Read More »1989 Lowell English-Only Referendum By Charles Gargiulo In 1989, the “English-Only” Referendum was an initiative put on the ballot and championed by George Kouloheras to stoke the same white nativist populism we see fueling Trumpism today. It was in large response to the political gains made by the city’s Latino…
Read More »George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at his parents’ estate on the south bank of the Potomac River in northeast Virginia. Congress made the day a Federal holiday in 1879 and nearly one hundred years later in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971, Congress changed the name…
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