Donoghue files campaign finance report

Candidates for the state legislature must file their pre-primary campaign finance reports today. I was able to find Eileen Donoghue’s but not Chris Doherty’s (as of 9:45 pm). Candidates may file electronically, so Doherty does have a few more hours. These reports cover all activity from January 1 thru August…

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Bill Lee is Back

Did you catch the story about former Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee over the weekend? The minor league team the Brockton Rox asked Lee to throw out the first pitch last Sunday. Lee refused, sort of…actually he said he would not throw out the first pitch of the game,…

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What’s with all the shooting?

Maybe it’s my imagination, but there seems to be a real uptick in the number of shootings in the city over the past few days. Consider this: Last night at midnight there was a report of shots being fired on Alma Street in Centralville Yesterday afternoon police rushed to Jewett…

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Robert Frost Fountain

While in Lawrence today for the Bread & Roses Festival, I got my first look at the city’s Robert Frost Fountain, pictured above. This is what is written on the plaque alongside the fountain: Robert Lee Frost, born Mach 26, 1874 was raised here in Lawrence. His first published poem…

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Bread and Roses Festival

To commemorate Labor Day this year I decided to visit the 26th annual Bread & Roses Festival in Lawrence, an event that celebrates the gains made by workers as a result of their nationally significant strike in the city back in 1912. Even before I left Lowell, however, I was…

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“The mills weren’t made of marble”

Here is the lead editorial from the September 7, 1992 edition of the New York Times – A Labor Day piece about the recently opened Boott Cotton Mill Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts: Youngsters who are made to troop through America’s historic landmarks might reasonably conclude that in the past, rich…

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A Modest Proposal: Voluntary Fed Taxes in 2011 to Break the Back of the Great Recession

The following might sound like it came out of the movie “Dave,” in which a presidential look-alike who runs a temp agency (Kevin Kline) winds up being secretly installed as president after the real prez has a stroke. At first manipulated by an evil chief of staff (Frank Langella), “Dave”…

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Neighborhood Schools

Earlier this week I posted something on Facebook regarding the start of school which prompted a conservative friend to comment on the benefits of “neighborhood schools,” a term I haven’t heard in a few years. It might surprise readers to learn that I am a proponent of neighborhood schools only…

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