Author Archive

Manchester, N.H.

The mill cities along the Merrimack River should promote themselves in clusters like the Civil War sites in the South. Why can’t our region become a multi-day destination for visitors the way heritage sites or natural attractions in other parts of the country present themselves? Manchester, New Hampshire, looks good…

Read More »

Revolving Museum at Length: Globe

The Arts editor of the Boston Globe decided that the Revolving Museum of Lowell deserved a close look as it closed its doors this summer. Read the article here. I was on the advisory committee of the Revolving Museum, not the board of directors but an advisory committee, for several years after…

Read More »

Swampland

Is it me getting less patient with uncomfortable weather or have we had an unusually long run of hot and/or swampy days in the valley? A news feature on TV this week reported on bats being hyper-active because of the extended stretch of hot days. I had a deja vu…

Read More »

Surrogate Fail

At 7:15 am, I’m bouncing between Iceland-Hungary playing team handball and watching President Obama’s surrogate Robert Gibbs on Morning Joe trying to explain the Obama plan for getting the country back on track—and Gibbs is talking like somebody put a nickel in his back to get a print-out answer. Fail. The…

Read More »

Folk Festival Notes

We were lucky about the weather, given the unsettled skies all weekend. Twenty-six years later, the event feels more like a street festival than a music and dance festival, which is fine. The audience is determining what the experience will be. Food from around the world, sidewalk entertainers, storefront buzz,…

Read More »

Leymah Gbowee Carries Olympic Flag in Opening Ceremony: Nobel Peace Prize Recipient and 2011 UMass Lowell Greeley Peace Scholar

From the NYTimes: Meanwhile, back at the stadium, the Olympic flag was carried along the track by eight humanitarians, including Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, and Leymah Gbowee, who shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Once they made a half-circuit of the stadium, they met a frail-looking Muhammad…

Read More »