“If, because of cutbacks and lack of support from the federal government, literature and the arts and other aspects of the humanities become just parlor musings of the wealthy, we would have made a huge mistake,’’ Dartmouth’s president, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, said in an interview. “Literature and the arts…
There’ s a big party tonight…at the John F Kennedy Library. Tonight library officials will re-create JFK’s election night party held fifty years ago, November 8, 1960. Because the race was so close, Kennedy didn’t discover he was elected president until the morning after the voting. Early on the morning…
Looking at the fallen leaves in my back yard and on the South Common this weekend, I noticed a visual correlation. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many pictures of the cosmos, but it occurred to me that the leaf-strewn ground, if turned downside up, could look a little like…
Even though the Caller ID said “Unknown Caller” the other night, I still picked up the phone and was greeted by an automated survey, purportedly conducted by “the College Republicans.” It began simply: who would you vote for if the 2012 presidential election were held today? Mitt Romney Mike Huckabee…
Today’s installment of our World War One remembrance (thanks to the efforts of Eileen Loucraft) is a summary of a letter from Edward Nelson to his parents that he wrote while in France in December 1917 which is before the American forces were fully engaged in combat. Corporal Edward Nelson…
This past summer during a vacation in Chicago I visited the Museum of Science of Industry which was fascinating in its own right but it was also on my things-to-see list because it is the one surviving building from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition (shown above). That world’s fair brought…
Nancye Tuttle visited Portland, Maine this weekend and wrote a couple of blog posts that should be of interest to our readers. Nancye writes of her visit to the Portland Museum of Art to see a photography exhibit that reminded her of the work of Lowell photographer Joe Quinlan who…
Over at the TPM website there is a report that Steny Hoyer is in the lead with colleagues willing to publically support his candidacy for Minority Whip against James Clyburn – the apparent choice of Nancy Pelosi. Thirty House Democrats from across the political spectrum have signed on to a…
There’s much analysis out there on why the GOP took so many seats in the House and a few in the Senate. Over at POLITIO, reporter Byron Tau comments on the “senior factor” in some these races. In an election marked by dramatic defections from the Democratic Party, older voters…
John Lennon’s image will appear on a commemorative coin issued in England thanks to a popular vote conducted by the Royal Mint. He joins other notable persons who have received this “honour,” including Shakespeare, Churchill, Darwin, and Florence Nightingale. If England can manage this kind of tribute for John Lennon,…