Dave Perry walked around his neighborhood a couple of nights ago and wrote this after he got back home. Our readers may know him as a music journalist and/or the guy who runs Vinyl Destination record shop in Mill No. 5 on Jackson Street in Lowell. He’s also a senior…
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Book launching for HISTORY AS IT HAPPENS: Citizen Bloggers in Lowell, Mass. Saturday, August 5, 2017, 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, at Lowell Telecommunications Corp., 246 Market St, Market Mills, Downtown Lowell. The book has writing and pictures from the first ten years (2007-16) of the RichardHowe.com blog. Forty contributors…
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Looking through the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times today, I saw a full page ad for a book called “Footsteps: Literary Pilgrimages Around the World,” which is drawn from past travel columns in the Times. The Times is considered by many people as the paper of…
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We have a new poem from Tom Sexton today, which he sent from his home in Alaska. In this new composition Tom recreates an extended moment in his Lowell youth, reflecting on a kind of confusion most of us have experienced. The details are just right in this self-portrait of…
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Maybe the American Psychological Association (APA) can add a new syndrome to the behaviors that members of the APA observe and treat. I don’t know what else to call it other than Trump-Monitoring Fatigue. I’m not so far over the edge that I need to check in with a…
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I’m pinch-hitting for Dick this week while he is otherwise occupied. Instead of his usual round-up of major happenings and ongoing issues, I will share some observations about life in the city. It’s helpful to step back and look at the big picture. I had an opportunity to walk through…
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I have a 15-year-old white T-shirt with teal blue lettering on the back that reads “Partners in Progress, UMass Lowell & the Community.” The Hanes Beefy-T has been washed maybe 700 times, but the fabric has not frayed and the words are not faded. There’s a slight tear under the…
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NYTimes web page has a lead story about how the Republican Party and its financiers first sold to the public and then politically embraced the view that the facts and forecasts for global warming or climate change are “fake science.” There’s a lot of criticism of how the Democratic Party…
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In the New York Times, scholar and activist Bill McKibben calls Trump’s decision to cancel U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Accord “stupid and reckless.” It’s looking more and more as if Pres. Trump is doing things, making decisions, and appointing people just because he can—not because the purpose is…
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Dick Howe asked me to be the guest host for this important weekly ritual.—PM Garrison Keillor was known to start his regular report about local doings on his radio show A Prairie Home Companion by saying, “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon . . .” I can’t remember…
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