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Politics as Cage-Match
George Packer of the ATLANTIC magazine checks in with today’s bulletin on political bottom-feeders with their eyes on the top and hands grabbing for the prize. They win sometimes, but it doesn’t last forever.
Read More »Current Events
Nancy Gibbs Is a Serious American
TIME magazine is no far-out political rag. Nancy Gibbs is a serious American writer and observer of its civic culture. We are far down the line of political trouble when Nancy Gibbs in TIME offers this analysis of the current White House occupant. What Donald Trump “knows” derives from the…
Read More »‘Remembering Arthur Ramalho’ by D-Tension
Our friend in Lowell, D-Tension, the writer, performing artist, record producer, and all around-er, recently shared this appreciation of Arthur Ramalho, icon of the city’s boxing scene on his Facebook page. With his permission, we are cross-posting the piece here. The image of the famed trainer is by Danielle Levitt,…
Read More »“September 11” by Stephen O’Connor
The author of two novels and a collection of short stories, Smokestack Lightning, Stephen O’Connor of Lowell is a past contributor to this blog whose writing in included in History As It Happens: Citizen Bloggers in Lowell, Mass. (2017), a collection of the best of the RichardHowe.com blog in its…
Read More »“Trees of Bolton”: A New Poem by Chath pierSath
Chath lives and works on a small family farm in Bolton, Mass., where he contemplates writing as a form of escape, but he can’t just rid himself of human ties. He paints the American sky thinking of Cambodia’s tyranny and blood. He’s alone, but not lonely, and tries living to…
Read More »Hannah Arendt’s Insight Applies: Some People Will Not Comply
Hannah Arendt (web photo courtesy of the L.A. Times) Certain national observers have been saying for some time that America is in a state of emergency, and many of us have felt like that since late 2016. This is no normal time. The policy disruption at the federal level is…
Read More »Need a New Luther, Now
September 1, 2019
by
PaulM
Posted in Culture, Current Events, History, Politics, Election 2020
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Web photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons We write about a lot of things here, many under the umbrellas of politics and history. There’s no escaping the religious element in our present political moment when ethical questions about fair payment for work done, equal treatment of all persons, humane responses to…
Read More »Main Issue for 2020 Election?
The median American household has only about $12,000 in savings. This quotation is from today’s New York Times, a guest essay on the opposite-editorial page by Caitlin Zaloom about the high cost of a college education and the financial impact on families who are not wealthy. Here’s the essay link…
Read More »Sen. Corey Booker on the Trail in N.H.
My friend Renae Lias, a former colleague from UMass Lowell, is reporting on the presidential campaign in New Hampshire. Renae is a communications professional who has worked in state government and on government relations for higher education. She attends local events in N.H. and exchanges updates with a small group…
Read More »2020 Campaign Trail (1.)
I told my co-blogger Dick Howe that I would write a series of posts about the 2020 presidential campaign because everything is connected: national-to-local, coast-to-coast, global-to-regional. When I lived in Lowell I walked across Highland Street to the Rogers School, the James P. Scondras Memorial Gymnasium, to vote in every…
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