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The Learning Gulf It has been about a week now. BP has its finger in the dike, and the seabed is strangely silent. I almost miss that Live Feed (Live! Crude! Oil!). On TV the oil looked, oddly, like some underwater dust storm. Maybe it is over. Maybe not. Now…
Read More »It’s always fun to get the SUN insert with the Lowell Folk Festival schedule, artist/group descriptions, and street map of the stage locations and other attractions. Looking at it this morning, I thought the community has done well in the past 30-something years building what is for all intents and…
Read More »In a StateHouse News Bureau story reported in today’s Eagle Tribune, there are three legislator-perspectives on the current status of the Casino bill. From Senator Stan Rosenburg (D-Amherst), chief gambling bill negotiator for the Senate – still hopeful: Asked if he felt there might be an unbreakable impasse, Rosenberg said,…
Read More »Globe staffer James Reed delves deeper into what the Lowell Folk Festival is really all about in today’s edition. It’s an obvious but overlooked fact about folk festivals: In the truest sense, they’re not just about singer-songwriters wielding acoustic guitars or dancers kicking up their heels to Cape Breton fiddlers.…
Read More »The NYTimes today reports that the US is falling behind in college completion rates when compared to other countries. It’s good to note that UMass Lowell is bucking the worrisome national trend. Between 2007 and 2009, the student success rate increased by about five to eight percent in various measures,…
Read More »Scot’s Heather wins prize in 1861 Both Tewksbury weeklies – The Advocate and the Town Crier – are reporting plans for a summer search for any signs that the “Scot’s Heather” – that won a “New Native Plant” medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society back in 1861 – still grows in the Tewksbury town…
Read More »Lowell is in the Universe. This stuff just blows my mind. The latest cosmic discovery will make anyone pause and consider his or her own place in space. A little more humility would go a long way among the inhabitants of Earth. Makes you wonder why it took so long to…
Read More »If you’re interested in historic election results, please visit our “Elections” page which contains a vast amount of data but is still a work in progress. Thus far, it contains the results of every Lowell City Council election from 1965 to 2009 and today I’ve added our first state election…
Read More »Timothy Egan checks in with his latest NYTimes column, this one about heat waves, extreme weather, the reality of global warming, and the desperate need for smarter federal policies on energy. Read his views here, and consider subscribing to the NYT if you appreciate the writing. My household gets the…
Read More »While nobody was looking, writer-actor-director-baseball wiseman-cultural commentator-allied blogger Jack Neary packed his stuff and moved from Lowell to southern New Hampshire, just over the border in Derry. After Robert Frost trying to run a farm in that town many years ago, this is probably the biggest literary news in Derry. Jack’s…
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