Last Friday, economist Paul Krugman wrote in the NYTimes about the comeback of “voodoo” economics, which the first President Bush tried to warn Americans about in 1980, when he was trying to stop Ronald Reagan from becoming the Republican Party’s nominee for president. And the rest is history, as they…
The Learning Gulf It has been about a week now. BP has its finger in the dike, and the seabed is strangely silent. I almost miss that Live Feed (Live! Crude! Oil!). On TV the oil looked, oddly, like some underwater dust storm. Maybe it is over. Maybe not. Now…
It’s always fun to get the SUN insert with the Lowell Folk Festival schedule, artist/group descriptions, and street map of the stage locations and other attractions. Looking at it this morning, I thought the community has done well in the past 30-something years building what is for all intents and…
The NYTimes today reports that the US is falling behind in college completion rates when compared to other countries. It’s good to note that UMass Lowell is bucking the worrisome national trend. Between 2007 and 2009, the student success rate increased by about five to eight percent in various measures,…
Lowell is in the Universe. This stuff just blows my mind. The latest cosmic discovery will make anyone pause and consider his or her own place in space. A little more humility would go a long way among the inhabitants of Earth. Makes you wonder why it took so long to…
Timothy Egan checks in with his latest NYTimes column, this one about heat waves, extreme weather, the reality of global warming, and the desperate need for smarter federal policies on energy. Read his views here, and consider subscribing to the NYT if you appreciate the writing. My household gets the…
While nobody was looking, writer-actor-director-baseball wiseman-cultural commentator-allied blogger Jack Neary packed his stuff and moved from Lowell to southern New Hampshire, just over the border in Derry. After Robert Frost trying to run a farm in that town many years ago, this is probably the biggest literary news in Derry. Jack’s…
The ritual has been going on since the late ’80s now, but anyone with a feeling for the pulse of the city can feel the urban heart pumping at a faster rate starting mid-week of Lowell Folk Festival weekend. It’s always the last full weekend of July—full weekend—which is why…
Robert Scheer in the online Huffington Post says the GOP will pay politically for their double-standard on demanding pay-as-you-go for jobless benefits but not for their standard proposed upper tier tax cuts. Read his rant here, which I picked up from realclearpolitics.com
If you are in downtown Lowell for the Lowell Folk Festival this weekend, and everyone reading this should be going to the Festival for at least a few hours, then walk to the intersection of Market, Central, and Prescott streets and look for the Printer on Prescott Artists Research Center.…
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