Here are the answers to this week’s Tuesday Trivia questions: 1) How did Fort Hill get its name? • A fortification was built on it by the Native Americans 2) What corporation was formed in 1792 and is the oldest existing company in the United States? • The Proprietors of…
Read More »
President Obama pumped up the volume on his message for the upcoming election in a just-released interview with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine. I picked up the feed from realclearpolitics.com. Read the RS interview here, and consider buying the magazine if you value the work.
Read More »
The State of Vermont lodged a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration and asked for an investigation to determine whether Log Cabin Syrup, a division of Pinnacle Foods LLC, is violating FDA labeling laws. A recent AP story noted: A new Log Cabin syrup touted as “all natural” looks…
Read More »
In an op-ed piece in today’s Boston Globe, former Massachusetts Attorney General and Member of Congress from the 5th District – Jim Shannon – weighs-in on the pending sale of the Caritas Christi Health Care systems to Cerebus Capital Partners – a for-profit private equity firm. Commenting on Attorney General Martha…
Read More »
Why isn’t the annual announcement of the MacArthur Foundation “genius grants” for extraordinary creativity in the sciences, arts, engineering, and other disciplines televised nationally like baseball’s All-Star Game? The awardees are the “stars” of intellect, creativity, and insight. The NYTimes today reports on the latest MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grants.” At least three of…
Read More »
This past Saturday I served as the moderator at the Lowell Historical Society’s annual Trivia Night. My job was to ask the questions, alternating between Trivial Pursuit style interrogatories that tested general knowledge, and plenty of Lowell specific questions to test the knowledge of local history in the room. The…
Read More »
In inky night we crossed New Mexico; at gray dawn it was Dalhart, Texas; in the bleak Sunday afternoon we rode through one Oklahoma flat-town after another; at nightfall it was Kansas. The bus roared on. I was going home in October. Everybody goes home in October. We arrived in St.…
Read More »
The Boston Herald reminds us in an AP story just added to their on-line edition, that a newly expanded version of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! awaits aficionados of Jack Kerouac and his literary world. LOWELL – The city of Lowell is set to hold an expanded version its annual festival celebrating…
Read More »
Roger Brunelle, inventor of the guided tours of Kerouac’s literary sites in Lowell, will lead a 2.5 hour bus tour on Saturday, Oct. 2, starting at 8.30 am at the National Park Visitor Center, 246 Market St. See the sites written about in “Visions of Gerard,” “Doctor Sax,” “Maggie Cassidy,”…
Read More »
NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman today writes that “structural unemployment” is a fiction accepted by certain experts as a way to explain why so many people are jobless and repeated by many others who prefer to believe that explanation rather than do something difficult to try to fix the problem. Read Krugman here, and consider getting…
Read More »