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Poet Tom Sexton is a great friend of this publication. He sent a poem tonight from the other side of North America, where, in his Alaskan home, he got the news about the passing of poet Seamus Heaney of Ireland and the world.—PM . On the Death of Seamus Heaney…
Read More »The Fall 2013 issue of “Arts and Ideas” from UMass Lowell is available online here. Note the upcoming Lunchtime Lectures at the UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center with speakers such as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and new media guru Nicco Mele. Reservations are required for these events and the…
Read More »In today’s Lowell Sun… this photo of nurses celebrating the 60th anniversary of their graduation from St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing caught my eye. Lowell has a long history and tradition of educating and training women – and yes men – for the profession of Nursing. Students – including…
Read More »Jack Flood died last Sunday at age 91 (his obituary from O’Donnell Funeral Home). Jack was an institution at St. Patrick’s parish but I got to know him because of his military service during World War Two. We both served in armor units, he fighting Germans in various theaters and…
Read More »Conflict in the Middle East has been a constant for as long as I can remember, and the U.S. in on the verge of taking military action again.—PM Gulf War Notebook (1991) Feb. 15. Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council says Iraq is prepared to withdraw from Kuwait in compliance with U.N.…
Read More »The following essay was written in 2005 for the Sunrise public affairs radio program of WUML-FM at UMass Lowell. The weekday morning show was broadcast for a few years under the guidance of executive producer Chris Dunlap. I was reminded of the essay by this week’s news reports about August…
Read More »The National Park Service is 97 years old today. The following is an excerpt from the law that made Lowell, Massachusetts, part of the system of national parks in America.—PM . Public Law 95-290 95th Congress June 5, 1978 (H.R. 11662) Lowell National Historical Park 16 U.S.C. 410cc. An Act…
Read More »With his brothers William and Josiah, 26-year-old Micah Hildreth joined Capt. Peter Coburn’s Dracut minutemen when they engaged British troops at Lexington and later fought at Bunker Hill and in the siege of Boston in late 1775. He marched with dozens of Dracut men to Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York…
Read More »March on Washington: Commonly referred to as the March on Washington, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom brought over 200,000 people to the nation’s capitol to protest racial discrimination and show support for civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress. The March on Washington took place on…
Read More »Tadodaho Sidney Hill with Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (right) and Jamon Paskernin (2012, White House Tribal Nations Conference). At Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s Convocation for New Students at Syracuse University on August 23, the Thanksgiving Address was offered by Tadodaho Sidney Hill in his language—an English translation was…
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