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The following was distributed earlier today as my weekly Substack newsletter on Lowell politics. If you’d like to receive this weekly update by email in the future, sign up here.  **** Although not on the agenda for Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting, the possibility that migrants in need of emergency shelter…

The entry below ia being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. met Benjamin Netanyahu some 40 years ago at a small dinner at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. I saw him again at a larger event, an impassioned speech on terrorism. It was just after he founded an…

Living Madly: Hello? By Emilie-Noelle Provost I’ve read several articles lately that discuss the problem of loneliness and what can be done about it. Over the past several years, it seems, the lack of human connection has become a problem for people of all ages. Even if loneliness doesn’t affect…

Song lyrics by Charles Gargiulo: BAG LADY This was originally published by the New Lowell Offering in 1977.  She drifts from the depots and bus stops To still the chill in her bones. She has to keep moving constantly To hide the fact she’s alone. When she stops to rest…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.   This week marks the 50th anniversary of hip hop music, and many platforms, including National Public Radio and the New York Times, are celebrating the phenomenon. For those of us immersed in or more comfortable with Beethoven, the…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Trump and his acolytes are whining across media platforms that Tuesday’s grand jury indictment of Donald Trump is a violation of his First Amendment rights. The villains, they complain, are the weaponization of the Department of Justice and…

The following was distributed earlier today as my weekly Substack newsletter on Lowell politics. If you’d like to receive this weekly update by email in the future, sign up here.  **** With no Lowell City Council meeting last Tuesday due to the every-other-week summer schedule, there’s not much new to report…

The entry below is being cross posted frtom Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Reading books year-round is life-enhancing, but reading in summertime seems especially to be savored. Here are some non-fiction selections. The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson will fascinate anyone intrigued by the immigrant experience, Irish…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. There’s nothing like the distractions of summer to make one forget (almost) the news. And, however guilty I may feel about not persevering as the “eat your spinach” part of your weekly communications, I have no intention…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own bloig. On this 247th celebration of our country’s birth, any American who believes in the progress of civilization must be rattling in the throes of PTSD. Over the last two years, the Supreme Court has managed to wipe…