City Councilor Patrick Murphy has a motion on tonight’s City Council agenda to “discuss larger Charter Changes to increase civic participation (including combined districts, at large system, term limits) at Rules Subcommittee.” Because the motion simply asks that these items be discussed at a future subcommittee meeting, I assume tonight’s…
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. . . nobody is clear about what sort of country America is going to be in 2030 or 2050. Nobody has quite defined America’s coming economic identity. In thinking about this question, it probably helps to start at the beginning. Five hundred years ago, agriculture was the major economic…
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In today’s Globe, columnist James Carroll asks a relevant question, “Why are outsiders in?”—but he doesn’t really answer. His case in point is the new leader of New York City public schools chosen by Mayor Bloomberg. Read the opinion piece here, and get the Globe if you want more.
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Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale film a scene for ‘The Fighter’ in Lowell last summer The Boston Herald’s “Dish Ladies” – Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa – give a sampling of the West Coast reviews for the made-in-Lowell movie “The Fighter” in today’s edition. The gloves are off as the ladies…
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The Washington Post owners and editors should be ashamed of themselves for publishng on the home page of the paper’s website an opinion piece by pollsters Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Shoen calling for President Obama to immediately announce that he will not seek re-election. Why should this president…
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Another excellent essay by Steve O’Connor: I spent my early childhood in Lowell on Marginal Street, which is on the margin of the railroad tracks. The tracks ran parallel to the street, just a few feet behind the white picket fence in the back yard. The trains roaring and clattering…
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Sunday, Nov. 14, 1-3 pm, Centro Restaurant, 24 Market St, Lowell. Artist reception for Pamela Wamala, whose work is on display (“Freedom Flow Wall Puzzles”) Thursday, Nov. 18, 6.30 pm, Spalding House, 383 Pawtucket St, Lowell. “Wanted: Asian Longhorned Beetle!”–Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust Annual Meeting and a program geared toward…
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This is interesting. . . and rings familiar, but not exactly, of course. Historians often refer to the period from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century as “the Gilded Age,” a term credited to Mark Twain and Charles D. Warner for a book…
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This is the final section of the essay about Lowell that I’ve been posting this week.—PM Cut from American Cloth (5) Places change, people enter and exit the stage—we won’t see Paul Tsongas jogging through the South Common, we won’t see Brother Gilbert who taught at Keith Academy after mentoring…
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Thursday, Nov. 18, 7 pm A lecture-performance featuring traditional folk music from all regions of Greece as played on the violin and laouto, as well as lyras from Thrace, Macedonia, Crete, and Pontos, as performed by Beth Bahia Cohen – violin and lyras, and Mac Ritchey – laouto and percussion. This…
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