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Saturday night I refereed a debate between two friends, both from a younger generation than me, over the necessity of air conditioning. One combatant maintained that even here in New England, modern home and building design made artificial cooling a necessity; the other maintained that while A/C is certainly pleasant,…
Read More »“(We hope) that our transportation crisis will be solved by a bigger plane or a wider road, mental illness with a pill, poverty with a law, slums with a bulldozer, urban conflict with a gas, racism with a goodwill gesture.” – Philip E. Slater “Wisdom demands a new orientation of…
Read More »From my vantage point, the real estate recovery is reality and no longer just hype. Here are the Lowell sales for the past week: July 15, 2013 (Monday) 16 Merrimack St Unit 4D for $90,000 29 School St Unit 29 for $174,500 13 Wiltshire Cir for $189,000 356 Wentworth Ave…
Read More »It was last Wednesday, our first afternoon in Berlin. Struggling to stay awake against the effects of losing a night’s sleep by flying across the Atlantic, we found a peaceful cafe with outdoor seating along the banks of the Spree River right in the heart of Berlin for a late…
Read More »For anyone who enjoys history, Berlin should be high on the list of places to visit. I just got back from a seven day visit (which is why I’ve been AWOL from blogging). Beginning with the German History Museum where we say a document preserved in bronze from the year…
Read More »Paul McCartney read aloud a sign down front in the crowd that summed up the situation nicely: “Macca-holics: There Is No Cure.” First, I will post Sarah Rodman’s exuberant Boston Globe review of Tuesday night’s concert at Fenway Park, and then will offer my thoughts. Web photo by Barry Chin…
Read More »For a decade now, my routine on the 4th of July has been consistent: a family cookout late in the afternoon and then in front of the TV to see the Boston Pops perform at the Esplanade. For several years, I’d been slowly growing disenchanted by the evolution of that…
Read More »John Edward, a resident of Chelmsford who earned his master’s degree at UMass Lowell and who teaches economics at Bentley University and UMass Lowell, contributed the following column. Legend has it that President Truman asked his staff to bring him a one-armed economist. He was tired of economic advisors saying…
Read More »Web photo courtesy of dailykos.com . Holding On to Those Self-Evident Truths By John Wooding . It’s Independence Day. A few weeks ago I became an American citizen. No big deal, really. Thousands of people do this every year. But I have been here for over thirty years, hanging on…
Read More »Check out (literally) “Warrior’s Heart” at Lowell’s Pollard Memorial Library. Photos (and text) by Tony Sampas.
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