web photo courtesy of washingtonpost.com I saw the aerial-view pictures of the “restore America’s values” rally in Washington, D.C. The organizers and attendees deserve credit for an impressive looking gathering. A lot of people. They put their shoes on and showed up to make a point and pump themselves up. The…
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Thanks to Kim Zunino for her informative tour of the School Street Cemetery this morning. Dedicated 16 years before Lowell was incorporated as a town, School Street, also known as “Lowell Cemetery No. 1” is the city’s oldest public burial place. Roaming around the markers, names from the pre-Lowell period…
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The Moses Greeley Parker Lectures, Middlesex Community College, and UMass Lowell have teamed up to offer two important public lectures on economics this fall at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center. Both programs are free and include a light buffet lunch. Here are the details: Monday, Oct. 18, 12 noon…
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Just one more column. Timothy Egan of the NYTimes goes after the fact-less and clueless in our civic culture who are giving the term “know-nothing” a new spin. Read Egan here, and look for the NYT if you appreciate the reasoning.
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Bob Herbert and Charles Blow of the NYTimes today comment on the Glenn Beck rally in Washington, D.C., that coincides with the anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Read Bob Herbert here and Charles Blow here, and consider buying the NYT if you appreciate the…
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In September 2001, my wife and son for the first time picked grapes to make jelly from the venerable vine that crawls all over our modest backyard arbor. We had been coaxing the vine back to health for a couple of years before we got a large enough yield. In…
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Back row from left: Joe Fitzpatrick, Gerry Durkin, Brendan Fleming, Curtis LeMay, Bud Caulfield and Bob Kennedy Front row from left: Tarsy Poulios, Richard Howe Sr, Brian Martin Only four councilors – Fleming, Howe, Brian Martin and Bob Kennedy – won reelection that year making it the first term for…
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One of our regular readers, writer and poet Jacquelyn Malone, shows up today as a contributor. Jackie is living in Lowell for the second time around; she was here during the high-tech boom of the late ’70s and into the ’80s. I was introduced to her work in the ’80s…
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Writing about the upcoming Bread & Roses Festival in Lawrence sent me to the vault for this poem written in the late 1970s, when I first encountered the political puppeteers and bakers in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Coincidentally for our blog community here, this poem was selected by Tom Sexton (before I knew who…
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Mark your calendars for one of the authentic Merrimack Valley annual events, the Bread & Roses Festival in Lawrence, which is always produced on Labor Day. This year it’s Monday, September 6, 12 noon to 6 p.m. on the Campagnone Common in the middle of downtown. If you go, look…
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