I’ve been to every Folk Festival since the first National Folk Festival in Lowell in 1987, and the 2010 Saturday was as good as I’ve seen it—the talent, the street life, the audience size, the urban energy. I spent a lot of time at Boarding House Park with the UMass…
I began my Folk Festival Day at the St John’s Baptist Church soul food stand at the Dutton Street Dance Pavilion with a plate of barbecued ribs, rice and beans, green beans and corn bread which was excellent. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around, visiting the various…
The Associated Press reported on President Obama’s comments about making progress on the national economic front, including the new financial regulations law. He also called on Congress to send him a bill that is intended to assist small businesses through tax credits. Looming over these steps forward, however, was the…
Last Friday, economist Paul Krugman wrote in the NYTimes about the comeback of “voodoo” economics, which the first President Bush tried to warn Americans about in 1980, when he was trying to stop Ronald Reagan from becoming the Republican Party’s nominee for president. And the rest is history, as they…
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…
From the organizers of the Lowell Folk Festival: Weather change tonight. *The Ethnic Flag raising has been moved to the Lowell High School Auditorium at 6:45 p.m. *All Boarding House Park performances will be held inside Lowell High School in the Irish Auditorium. *The Dutton Street Dance Pavilion opens at 7:15…
Here’s an update from the National Park about the Folk Festival concerning tonight’s weather: The Lowell Folk Festival goes on rain or shine! There are great acts, amazing food, and wonderful audiences at two stages tonight’s 24th Festival. For tonight only, the Lowell Folk Festival schedule has been shifted for…
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…
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.…
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,…