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The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. No single issue dominated the meeting although there were several interesting public policy discussions that I’ll review today. **** Underage drinking – A trio of motions addressed the presence of minors in establishments that serve alcohol. A steady stream of…

Recollections of the Irreplaceable David Daniel By Ed DeJesus Deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend and mentor, Dave Daniel, and mired in Florida commitments that kept me from attending his glorious Celebration of Life (fondly recounted to me in Steve O’Connor’s email, then embellished by others with…

Living Madly: I Hate Summer By Emilie-Noelle Provost Although I appreciate fresh local vegetables and not having to scrape ice off my windshield, summer and I really don’t get along. Every May, I’m overcome by a sense of dread because summer is coming, and there’s nothing I can do to…

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday.  Book Review: This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History, by Beverly Gage (2026). A professor of American history at Yale, Gage won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for her biography of J. Edgar…

2026 FIFA World Cup – Fans, Feelings and Facts By Louise Peloquin Even the most indifferent to the world’s most popular sport have been caught up, at least for a few moments, by some of the many viral images around the 2026 FIFA World Cup competition. It runs from June…

There was no Lowell City Council meeting this week so I will return to my biographical sketches of the mayors of Lowell. This is the third installment which covers the first 18 mayors who served under the Plan E form of government (1945 to 1983). For those who missed the…

Between the Covers By Leo Racicot The Golden Age of magazines was still going strong when I was a kid. Popular publications like LIFE and LOOK Magazines still held their popularity with readers. As someone who’d been weaned from a young age on movies and movie-going, thanks to my father’s…

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday.  Article: “Inside Trump’s Great American State Fair” by Jim Puzzanghera, et al, Boston Globe, June 29, 2026. The Great American State Fair is a 16-day event on the National Mall in Washington, DC that runs from June…

A Bigger Splash in a Bigger Heat (1) By Louise Peloquin After an unusually early record-breaking heatwave at the end of May, June 15th temperatures started rising past the three-digit mark to top 106 in Paris on the 24th making the City of Lights the hottest spot on the planet.…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Four hundred thousand people attended the July Fourth Bicentennial Boston Pops Esplanade Concert in 1976. I was one of them. It was a gorgeous summer night, a peaceful crowd enjoying the music and spirit of post-Watergate comity. A…