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In today’s NYTimes, opinion writer David Brooks rails against what he sees as the utter failure of the two big conventional political parties. It’s fun to read, but I don’t like his insistence on charging both with equivalent incompetence. For once, I’d like him to run down the GOP without having to…
Read More »Tonight the Joint Committee on Redistricting met at Lawrence High School for the ninth in a series of hearings seeking testimony and input from across the Commonwealth from elected officials, representatives of organizations and interests and from the general public. The session lasted for nearly three hours before a very…
Read More »The Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting came to Lawrence High School tonight for a public hearing. Present were Senators Stanley Rosenberg (co-chair), Barry Finegold, Daniel Wolf, Sonia Chang-Diaz, and Bruce Tarr; and Representatives Michael Moran (co-chair), Sean Garballey, Bradford Hill, Alice Hanlon Peisch, Marcos Devers, John Keenan, Byron Rushing and…
Read More »Back in 2003, the Lowell City Council endorsed the city’s first Master Plan in 30 years. Since then, the Hamilton Canal project has become a reality, the housing bubble burst, and “sustainability” – of natural resources, history, culture, and people – has become more important. The process of updating the…
Read More »For almost twenty years I’ve lived on Highland Street, not far from McDonough Funeral Home, which, like the nearby courthouse, churches, school building, green common, old mill and small businesses, train station, and other houses, represents a piece of the architecture of daily life. If we had a hospital, an art…
Read More »We have a park on Middlesex Street that is one of the most actively used parks in the city: Clemente Park—Roberto Clemente Park, named for the Hall of Fame outfielder of the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the most revered Latino sports figures. In today’s NYTimes, Clemente is remembered in contrast…
Read More »“The findings are significant as we will have to change our view on how the Sun interacts with particles, fields and gases from other stars, and this has consequences that reach down to Earth,” commented Arik Posner, Nasa’s Voyager programme scientist. Bbc.com reports that NASA’s Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977 are…
Read More »Familar talking news-head and longtime political columnist Howard Fineman now is a big shot at AOL/Huffington Post—editorial director. On 6/9, he wrote about the value of local news and how AOL/HuffPo’s “Patch” affilliates are making a huge contribution to local news gathering. Read his column here.
Read More »I’m doing research for an essay about hyperlocal blogs like richardhowe.com, and I’d like to hear from people who know of similar blogs that focus deeply on a single place’s culture, politics, and history (the traditional past and moving-target history as it happens). Examples can be single-author blogs or multi-author and be…
Read More »Thoughts about a milestone from one of our Lowell-linked contributors flung not so far out into the Atlantic, namely, on the Vineyard–PM . My personal odometer spins to a big, bottom-heavy number on Monday, and it has got my attention, prompting me to write and share a few random notes.…
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