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Lowell native Mehmed Ali has been serving with the US State Department in Iraq for the past few years. Last Saturday, the Sun published a photograph with caption noting that Ali had recently received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy in Baghdad. According to the…
Read More »There’s a lot of turmoil today among liberals, progressives, Democrats, or whatever label fits for people who are more inclined to like and support President Obama than not. Maybe it’s time to step back. I just read Nicholas Schmidle’s account in The New Yorker of the raid in Pakistan that put an…
Read More »I second the emotion of the Globe’s Stuart Munro when he writes in today’s review of the Lowell Folk Festival that he was “bowled over” by the surprising performances of the Boston-based Debo Band with guest singers and dancers from Fendika of Ethiopia. Yesterday afternoon at the Dance Pavilion off Dutton Street, Debo…
Read More »“Are you he who would assume a place to teach or to be a poet here in the States? The place is august, the terms obdurate.” —Walt Whitman
Read More »My writing colleague Jack McDonough, an occasional contributor to this blog, would say this about last night: “Rain failed to dampen the spirits” of the festival-goers as the 25th annual Lowell Folk Festival rolled through downtown with its cargo of bright music, savory foods, hand-shaped craft objects, bins of joy,…
Read More »1. A success from the beginning, starting with National Folk Festivals as the model in the first three years. The content was high quality, the audiences were large, and the event production was first-rate. It’s always been a work-in-progress with improvements being made as seen and needed. Changes will continue based on…
Read More »Marie posted on the Globe article today about folk festivals in Lowell and Newport, R.I. Here are a couple of more soundbites from the James Reed article: Last year the Steep Canyon Rangers, a bluegrass band that has recorded and been on the road lately with Steve Martin, did double…
Read More »Not only are the national Democrats trying to prevent the US House Republicans from using the debt ceiling crisis to reshape public policy wholesale, they have to monitor the barn door to stop the GOP extremists from rushing in with anti-environmental measures while the spotlight is on the debt issue.…
Read More »About ten days ago, NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman got to the core of the problem with the national Republican party. When one side opts out of the agreed-to rules of elections and governing in a democracy, the system cannot function effectively. If your attitude is going to be that you…
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