Writing about Monday’s presidential debate, Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker nails the whole “Birther” thing in one paragraph in a way that sent a shiver up my spine. He puts the whole thing together with Trump’s down-deep character and temperament. You can read the entire magazine piece here.–PM Yet…
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Here’s a late season portfolio from the backyard garden that gave us a productive flowery summer. Top to bottom: hibiscus, stonecrop, zinnia, black-eyed susan or coneflower/rudbeckia.—PM
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In a democracy, or in our case a democratic republic with people chosen by their peers to represent others in dealing with public matters, the government is the club we grown ups belong to. There are families, churches and temples, parent-teacher associations, bowling leagues, film societies, baseball conferences, chambers of…
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On Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 5 p.m., Community Teamwork Inc. will unveil the restored and renewed Irish/Acre mural on a CTI building whose back wall faces the Worthen House Cafe on Worthen Street. The Hellenic Culture & Heritage Society will host a reception until 7 p.m. to celebrate artist Leo…
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I know, I’m posting this poem off-season if that matters. We don’t read Frost’s “Stopping by Woods” in December only. Tom Sexton sent me this poem a few months ago, and I neglected to share it with our readers. My bad. So, with the official start of fall close and…
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This Saturday at the Arts League of Lowell gallery, 307 Market Street (close to the corner of Dutton and Market), meet photographer Paul Richardson and see his outstanding photographs of Lowell buildings and places. The reception is 4 to 6 p.m. Cameo Diner. Olympia Restaurant. Bridge Street downtown. Pawtucket Falls.…
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Web photo courtesy of rocktumbler.com Online videos illustrate the results when plain-looking stones slowly turn in a rock tumbler with a mixture of special grit and a liquid solution. After 30 days of continuous tumbling, the agate, quartz, and jasper mineral specimens come out looking glassy and gleamy and so…
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I waited a long time before writing about 9/11, not because I didn’t want to but because I could not find the right words. I had composed a short, oblique poem called “The Cut” that delved into the way Nature tends to heal itself when it can, the way tree…
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Now that we are past Labor Day, I can say that I had my first summer “off” since I was 17 years old. That’s a long time in human years. When I retired from my management job at UMass Lowell last March, the thing I looked forward to more than…
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Here is the lead editorial from the September 7, 1992 edition of the New York Times – A Labor Day piece about the recently opened Boott Cotton Mills Museum: Youngsters who are made to troop through America’s historic landmarks might reasonably conclude that in the past, rich was typical. Ordinary…
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