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Protection for the challenged – (PIP #35) By Louise Peloquin       “Invalid” is no longer appropriate to designate the physically-challenged. However, fifty-seven years ago, it was not deemed offensive, insulting or derogatory. The June 4th peek into the past – “Voilà my solution” – dealt with work. This week’s provides…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Knife by Salman Rushdie is an account of the near-fatal attack on the well-known writer in 2022 by a lone knife-wielding terrorist who hated Rushdie for his writings, having read just two pages, and could only aver that Rushdie…

The Lowell City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday to consider the city’s FY2025 budget. Although the meeting lasted more than three hours, the council mostly just ratified the budget proposed by City Manager Tom Golden. In a way, this meeting was a legal formality since two things that…

Lowell resident Belinda Juran compiles an incredibly email newsletter that she distributes to subscribers every couple of weeks. The newsletter lists dozens and dozens of events and activites in Lowell and serves as an excellent community calendar. Belinda graciously granted me permission to repost her newsletter here on richardhowe.com to…

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy by the Allies. More than 2,500 Americans were killed that day, June 6, 1944, including several from Lowell. In the months that followed during the fight across France, many more were killed. Here are the stories of some of…

The entry below ias being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Let’s all be grateful that Boston’s bids for the Olympics have all failed. In the 1990’s, a self-appointed group, originally called The Boston Olympic Organizing Committee, conducted feasibility studies and mounted bids to host the 2000 Olympics,…

“Voilà my solution” – (PIP #34) By Louise Peloquin Over the last two weeks, our peeks into the past have presented local stories covering life journey episodes. (1)  This one deals with the most time-consuming of all – work. The text, perhaps a foreign news agency dispatch, offers a humorous twist on…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Want to get away from current news stories, weather warnings, and Donald Trump’s hush money election fraud trial? Want to stretch out with a book amidst the fragrance of lilacs, the perfume of flowering crab trees and…

A pair of recent Lowell Sun articles on the Lowell Planning Board’s review of the city’s proposed master plan update grabbed my attention so that topic will be the focus of today’s newsletter. (There was a City Council meeting Tuesday night, but it was conveniently uneventful.) The Lowell Planning Board,…

Philosophy and the Insect By Stephen O’Connor  As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.      –Shakespeare My father was a religious man, a devout Catholic who got down on his knees every night to pray. Though he regarded Catholic theology as the…