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While going through an accumulated pile of newspapers (both paper and electronic) this weekend, I read a couple of stories about a $2 fee Verizon was charging customers who paid bills by debit or credit cards and the resulting anger among effected customers. A front-page story by Todd Wallack in…
Read More »Today in the sun-drenched lobby of the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell, the 14th annual Lura Smith and Family celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took place. For two hours, the crowd was transported and inspired by prayer, music, dance and inspirational words. The annual “Living…
Read More »The East Pawtucketville Neighborhood Group will meet on Monday, January 23, 2012 from 7:00-8:30 pm at the Pawtucket Congregational Church at the corner of Mammoth Road and VFW Highway. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss community issues and members of the Lowell and UML Police Departments will be…
Read More »Elizabeth Warren in Lowell, November 2011 In the January/February edition of Mother Jones Magazine, writer Tim Murphy talks about the revenge of Wall Street and its target Elizabeth Warren and her campaign for the U. S. Senate in Massachusetts. For her sin of taking on the banks, Warren is unrepentant and unbowed by the attack-mode…
Read More »With Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. being remembered tomorrow in a special way across the nation, I went back to a prose poem written after a family visit to Washington, D.C., in the early summer of 2004, another presidential election year. We were months away from seeing Barack Obama make news with a…
Read More »James Whistler “Nocturne, Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach” – Whistler’s emphasis on sensation and atmosphere over detailed description has been compared by some to the philosophy underpinning Gardner’s whole museum. “I see the entire museum as a correlative to these shadowy tone poems,’’ wrote the poet and critic Wayne Koestenbaum…
Read More »My brother Richard often stops by my home to drop off an interesting item he has found along the way in his travels, often a photocopy of a news article or a brochure that is not to be missed. Yesterday, he unfolded a large piece of paper that turned out…
Read More »We called those round things records when I was growing up. For Christmas, I was the lucky recipient of a TEAC CD Recorder with Turntable/Cassette Player. A nice machine. I thought it would be fun to make my own discs of select LPs and cassette tapes that have been mothballed…
Read More »Whether its being propelled by citizens who want change or the media that wants controversy, a discussion of whether Lowell should switch to a strong mayor form of government broke out this week. I wrote a blog post, In Defense of Plan E last Saturday, then discussed it on City…
Read More »Jim Peters contributes the following essay: My now New Hampshire brother, Tom and I , have been traversing the city and surrounding countryside as we pick up leaves as part of my landscaping business. It is a very interesting exercise because Tom remembers the location of every tree that was…
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