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Kudos to Glenn Prezzano for making Merrimack Valley Magazine better and better with each issue. As a region, the Merrimack Valley needs this kind of publication to develop and maintain a distinct personality and image. The combination of local content, local writers, local photographers and designers, and business talent is…
Read More »We’ve just scheduled several guided tours of historic Lowell Cemetery for the coming months. They are still a ways off, but you can at least get them on your schedule: Saturday – August 14 – 10 am Friday – September 10 – 1 pm Saturday – September 11 – 10…
Read More »National columnist E. J. Dionne in his latest essay charts a route out of the political thicket for the Obama-led Democrats, but he senses a nagging lack of passion among the “D’s” and sees “I’s” trending toward the GOP for the fall. Read Dionne’s essay here, which I picked up from…
Read More »Bob Dylan said you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind’s blowing. Bob Forrant says we shouldn’t wait for the economists to tell us which way the economy went, but should seed the clouds ourselves to make some money rain. Read his latest take on the regional economy in…
Read More »The Massachusetts Office of Tourism has been reminding us by e-mail and on the official web site that last year: “The Special Commission Relative to Designating 1000 Great Places in Massachusetts was created by an Act of the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick on January 15,…
Read More »Really. Op-ed columnist Ross Douthat says the US needs a better targeted class fight that should pit “savers v. speculators, outsiders v. insiders, the industrious middle class v. the reckless, unproductive rich.” Read Douthat here, and consider subscribing to the NTY if you appreciate the writing.
Read More »Following is the second section of my poem “Colorado,” which I introduced yesterday. The Blood of Christ or Sangre de Cristo Mountains are in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The range is either the beginning of the Rocky Mountains on the way north or the last stretch of the Rockies heading south.…
Read More »In 1868, Lowell resident Charles Cowley wrote the “Illustrated History of Lowell”, a book filled with fascinating facts about our city. Here’s my fifth weekly compilation of “tweeting” from Cowley’s book: July 3 – Chelmsford always gave tax breaks & land grants to millers, mechanics & traders so they would…
Read More »“Arrangement in Gray: A (self) Portrait of the Painter” James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1872) Just the other day I noted a Lowell connection in the current issue of Yankee magazine – a quote from James A. M. Whistler. And now we note that on this day – July 11, 1834 –…
Read More »This being July, I’m offering section 1 of a three-part poem titled “Colorado,” which I wrote in pieces during the early 1980s, when I spent a fair amount of time out west. I later combined the individual poems because together they made a stronger composition.—PM Colorado 1. Heat flashes over the High…
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